Wow, what a summer festival season 2018/19! It all started with a photo of a Bin Fairy.
Here at Climate Wave we call our waste/resource management crew in Queensland, Eco Angels, so when I saw the Bin Fairies I just had to
contact B-Alternative and speak to Jason Rahilly the visionary and creator of this innovative organisation.
This all happened in 2017 and I met Jason over a delicious vegan lunch which he was late to but I didn’t mind at all once I heard his ideas for the company and settled into discussion that only like minded souls can have. So one of the many subjects breached was me coming to Victoria to work as a Bin Fairy for the 2018/19 season.
Let me just reiterate WOW… so the season is over for me anyway, back to Queensland with a smile on my face a great crew of new friends (Fairies) and a new business plan.
B-Alternative’s system which works so well involves offering compostable options to food vendors if they don’t have their own. This way you know exactly what system needs to be set up and can divert the maximum amount of resource away from landfill and B-Alternative’s amazing statistics prove Jason’s method works, better than anything I’ve seen in the world.
B-Alternative crew at Rainbow Serpent Festival
Here’s a quote from Tim Landells, Head Environmental Consultant at B-Alternative “composting at festivals instead of sending this waste/resource to landfill, has stopped a lot of methane from going into the atmosphere (huge contributor to global warming). We have stopped 108563 kg’s of CO2 equivalent (the effect other greenhouse gases have on global warming in comparison to CO2) from going into the atmosphere. To put this into perspective, it’s the same as:
- Not driving a small car around Australia’s coastline 20 times
- Not flying a Boeing 747 to Hawaii and back 29 times
- Turning off the power at 15, 4-person American houses for a year
These results are purely from us composting and not putting waste in landfill. It’s from what gases are released when composting compared to landfill. There are so many other factors to include that will increase the greatness of these results by a mile!”
Educating campers at Unify Gathering
Another major role we performed was that of Campground Education which was a real eye opener! There are a lot of young folk that it’s their first big festival and whether they go over the top at home or not they get very messy at these events. Our role was to remind patrons that they are obligated to keep a clean campsite and most of all take their shit home with them, oh & most importantly #partywiththeplanet
These are the events that I worked on but there were others that were serviced by the amazing dedicated B-Alternative crew during the summer.
Cowrie Markets (Torquay)
Queenscliff Music Festival
Warralily Christmas Spectacular
Surf Coast Kite Festival
Bentleigh Markets
Falls Festival (Lorne)
Nightjar Torquay (each Thursday in January)
UNIFY Gathering
Rainbow Serpent Festival
Nightjar Geelong (each Friday in February)
Day by the Bay
If you have an interest in these remarkable results & practices you can follow B-Alternative’s path in their social media, it’s definitely a path worth following. And love to all the Fairies 🙂
