Music festivals across the country aim to lessen their footprint

Last year’s Bonnaroo music festival produced more than 1 million pounds of waste (and quite a population of wasted fans), but recycling, composting, and reuse efforts kept more than half of it from reaching a landfill. It’s part of an ongoing effort to address the footprint of the annual jam-band festival — and a trend that continues to grow among music festivals all over the U.S. But a few carbon offsets does not a green festival make, so Grist’s Sarah van Schagen tuned in to the eco-efforts made by seven different festivals, and evaluated what’s being done and who could do better.