Waste Com­po­si­tion Mea­sure­ment at Fes­ti­vals

Hau­ru Oy’s and Macon Oy’s waste sep­a­ra­tion and com­po­si­tion exam­i­na­tion at the Qstock Fes­ti­val

Sep­a­ra­tion of waste bin con­tents dur­ing the Qstock week­end yield­ed a lot of data that can help increase recy­cling rates: the eas­i­est way to reduce the car­bon foot­print is by sep­a­rate­ly recy­cling plas­tic beer mugs, which requires reduc­ing the amount of used plas­tic types at the fes­ti­val.

Inno­va­tion Tri­al

In the tri­al orga­nized by Hau­ru, the waste man­age­ment com­pa­ny work­ing at Qstock, and envi­ron­men­tal con­sul­tant Macon, waste com­po­si­tion was ana­lyzed, i. e. dif­fer­ent vari­eties of waste and their amounts in the com­po­si­tion. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the func­tion­al­i­ty of sep­a­rate col­lec­tion was stud­ied when used by cus­tomers and staff.

Hauru’s Smart Fes­ti­val Waste Man­age­ment Con­cept includ­ed, on top of waste man­age­ment, mon­i­tor­ing of waste bin full­ness with Jaete sur­face mea­sure­ment sen­sors and reduc­ing the car­bon foot­print of waste man­age­ment. Waste com­po­si­tion analy­sis and waste bin mon­i­tor­ing give infor­ma­tion about what kind of waste bins are need­ed at fes­ti­vals and where they should be placed in order to decrease the car­bon foot­print fur­ther. This time there were mixed waste bins, plas­tic beer mug bins and card­board waste bins in use in the fes­ti­val area for the atten­dees. In the bar and restau­rant area, the staff had organ­ic waste bins, waste bags and bins for schnapps glass­es in use. Cable tie bins, card­board trol­leys and glass waste bins were placed by each stage.

Results

About 16 637 kg of waste was accu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing the fes­ti­val includ­ing mixed waste, card­board, organ­ic waste and pack­ing plas­tic. Only 14 % of the waste col­lect­ed at the fes­ti­val end­ed up being recy­cled.

If all waste were burned as com­bustible waste, the car­bon foot­print would be about 6 654,8 kg CO2‑e. Waste trans­porta­tion caused about 104.1 kg CO2‑e of emis­sions. Alto­geth­er, the car­bon foot­print is 6 758,9 kg CO2‑e if every­thing is cat­e­go­rized as com­bustible waste. When the recy­cled mate­r­i­al and com­bustible waste are com­bined, the car­bon foot­print is 5 857 kg CO2‑e: recy­cling reduced the car­boon foot­print by 902 kg CO2‑e.

The most effi­cient way to enhance recy­cling at fes­ti­vals is the sep­a­rate col­lec­tion of plas­tic waste. The eas­i­est plas­tic waste to be recy­cled was the waste in staff’s waste bag stands that includ­ed plas­tic film from can pack­ages. Sim­u­la­neous­ly, cable tie waste had end­ed up among mixed waste instead of plas­tic waste. Due to the large amount of plas­tic waste at fes­ti­vals, it is eas­i­er to reduce the amount of plas­tic types used instead of invest­ing in exact waste sep­a­ra­tion. If the acqui­si­tions focus on only one type of plas­tic in drink­ing ves­sels, recy­cling would be qual­i­ta­tive­ly sen­si­ble.

The recy­cling of com­bustible waste and tis­sue paper improved with sep­a­ra­tion instruc­tions: dirty tis­sue paper can be recy­cled as organ­ic waste in order to reduce the car­bon foot­print of com­bustible waste. Addi­tion­al­ly, organ­ic waste will be recy­cled bet­ter when plac­ing organ­ic waste bins by restau­rants for cus­tomer use. The recy­cle rates of card­board and paper­board waste can also be improved by plac­ing waste bins clos­er to cafe and restau­rant areas and by offer­ing bet­ter recy­cling instruc­tions.

Briefly

• The tri­al was orga­nized by Hau­ru and Macon.
• The event was the 2021 Qstock Fes­ti­val on July 30–31, 2021 in Oulu.
• ● The tri­al ana­lyzed the com­po­si­tion and amount of waste accu­mu­lat­ed at the fes­ti­val as well as its car­bon foot­print, solu­tions were devel­oped for eas­ing waste seper­a­tion and reduc­tion of the car­bon foot­print.