Environmental consciousness barely registered at the recent Democratic presidential debates, and climate-change deniers still seem comfortable ignoring science and evidence. But sustainability issues increasingly have come to bear on music festivals.
The Pitchfork Music Festival generates about 20 tons of waste in total each year, Reed says, and the percentage of it that gets recycled averages in the mid-40s. While this is vastly better than Chicago as a whole has ever managed, it’s not extraordinary for a festival. At the Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho, which in 2018 hosted around 24,000 people over five days—less than half the number who attended Pitchfork last year—about 45 percent of waste is either composted or recycled, according to the event’s sustainability coordinator.
Katsaros says that it’s achievable but “really challenging” for an event to divert 90 percent of its waste from landfills: “40 to 60 percent is real-world.”
“I appreciate that there is coverage of festivals, and there seems to be notable comments on sustainability,” she says. “There’s definitely more awareness than in 2010.” v
