Dour investigates how it can influence the behaviour of festival-goers

Belgium is home to some of the world’s best-known festivals. However, all that festival fun comes with a hefty ecological price tag, which is why waste management is a priority for festival organisers. This summer, they shifted up another gear with the mandatory introduction of reusable cups. Fost Plus, the leader in packaging recycling at home, has been working with Dour for the past ten years on instilling the sorting habit – even when you’re in festival mode.

It was Dranouter that first tested a sorting project on its festival site back in 2003. Dour was not far behind. ‘To start with, our role was very operational,’ says Christine Vermeulen, OOH project manager, ‘but these days we’re an advisory partner on the ground. Just as we work with numerous partners for selective collection at home, we’ve built that same ecosystem for festival operations.’

Visual check

At Dour, waste operator Vanheede is responsible for supplying and installing appropriate bins. It also performs the first visual check of what comes from on-site to the storage area. It’s a vital part of the process: a recent survey at the six PMD sorting centres revealed numerous funny and not so funny finds in the PMD, including a lost cushion that had come from a festival. ‘We’re learning all the time. Our starting-point is always the festival-goers, and how we can best guide them in adopting the right behaviour.’

One important observation in this context is that a tidy festival site stays tidy. ‘Almost all the festivals noticed that this summer, now that only reusable cups were in circulation. The more clearly it was indicated where these should go, the fewer ended up on the ground or in the general waste bin.’

The switch to reuse

The switch to reusable cups – soon to be followed by reusable eating utensils – is the next hurdle. ‘We’re using Dour as a test project. Right now it’s cups, but ultimately more single-use packaging will also be replaced by reusable alternatives. We’ve worked with Dour to test what works best in terms of communication, thanks to on-site eco-teams but also through sorting analyses. We’ve looked at how many reusable cups still ended up in PMD and how much PMD is in the residual waste. It’s a time-consuming process, but it gives us important insights into festival-goers’ behaviour.’

Centre of expertise

So what lies ahead? ‘We’re developing a centre of expertise on the subject of reuse. Recycling alone won’t save the world and people look to us for advice and support. The lessons we learn from working with Dour will allow us to provide even more targeted support to other festivals and organisations next year.’