What first drew me to the Ottawa Folk Festival as a volunteer were the musical acts but the things that define the festival in my eyes now is its devotion to the environment with the festival's setting, greening initiatives and the core community values.
The Green team at the festival goes through everything people throw out. Not a single piece of refuse goes to the landfill before a volunteer checks to make sure it can't be recycled or composted.
Volunteers pull out cans from the trash, collect them and then bring then to collect money to give back to the festival. Things like this are great examples of reducing, recycling and reusing.
I talked to Green Team crew leaders Jane Stallabrass and Alyssa Gladish who explained to me that going through all the garbage is the reason why the festival is able to have 60-75% diversion from the landfill. Ottawa has a 40% diversion rate.
The Green Team also refills the water station which has eliminated plastic bottles ever since the festival became the first water bottle- free festival in Ottawa
Envirodish is without a doubt one of the biggest factors in the festival being able to reduce its landfill waste. There are no disposable dishes at the festival, each plate, knife, fork and spoon is washed by hand by the Envirodish crew.
Cleaning dishes and lugging around 30-pound bags of compost is a dirty job but it's worth it to clean the planet. At the folk festival it's more than a title, greenwashing or catering to environmentally friendly trends, its about the Ottawa folk community's devotion to making a difference once compostable beer cup at a time.
Juanita
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