Greening the Blues Festival

The Pittsburgh Blues Festival brings together 8,000 – 10,000 Blues music enthusiasts each year to help the Food Bank feed thousands of people at risk of going hungry. This year the Green Cities Corps teamed up with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank (GPCFB) to bring you three days of music and green. The Festival had sustainable practices embedded within it (such as composting, recycling and waste oil collection), but it also demonstrated the many sustainable practices that are occurring within the Pittsburgh region to mitigate climate change. Nineteen green agencies and six local food producers were stationed under the Green Tent during the weekend to promote sustainable environmental initiatives. There were hands-on cooking demonstrations and Creative Reuse arts activities. Raffles for awesome eco prizes (energy audits, rain garden assessments, etc.) were also given away!!

In coordinating the recycling and composting efforts for the 2010 Pittsburgh Blues Festival our 54 volunteers were instrumental in assuring the success of this effort.

Volunteers monitored the recycling and composting stations to prevent contamination by cycling through the stations redistributing inappropriate waste from the “compost”, “land fill” or “recycling” receptacles into the correct waste bins. Additionally, volunteers removed full bags of waste, replaced new bags into emptied bins, educated festival goers about recycling and composting, completed the end of festival sweeps each night and a few of our rock star volunteers worked as the last line of defense to sort through several hundred pounds of food waste to assure the compost was not tainted with any non compostable materials. .

Last year, 3 -4 garbage truck loads of waste were sent to the landfill every night of the festival. Because of our efforts only 1 truckload went to the landfill on Friday and Saturday. Sunday we ended with 2 garbage truck loads but still overall we diverted a total of 6 garbage truckloads of waste were diverted from the landfill. That is a 60% reduction. Not bad for our first year.

To learn more about the benefits of recycling and composting in the United States click on the fact sheet below to read the EPA’s 2008 report on municipal solid waste generation.