Gurten Puts Recycling On A Plate

As European festivals strive to find new ways to be even greener, Switzerland’s Gurten Festival has come up with the innovative idea of having crockery made from sugar cane fiber.

"I deliver double energy! From me comes electricity," reads the slogan on plates that can be fermented with other refuse to make a biogas that’s converted to eco-electricity. Then it’s fed into the mains.

It’s efficient at both ends because one single sugar cane plant can produce up to 50 disposable plates. The plant re-grows rapidly, several times in one year.

Geoff Ellis from Scotland’s DF Concerts chaired a session at this year’s ILMC called "Cleaning Up Our Act," which showed the vast majority of European festivals are keen to make a collective effort to reduce the summer season’s carbon footprint.

Yourope, the European festivals’ organization, has run its own "Green ‘n’ Clean" program for more than a year. Yourope chairman Christof Huber (from Switzerland’s Open Air St. Gallen) said it’s proved so popular that he puts it down as one of the reasons for the group’s increased membership.

Agreenerfestival.com and its "small green festival magazine," which probably uses fewer trees on account of its size, provides a forum for discussion on environmentally efficient practices for music and arts festivals, including examples such as KT Tunstall choosing a tour bus that runs on renewable biodiesel.

and its "small green festival magazine," which probably uses fewer trees on account of its size, provides a forum for discussion on environmentally efficient practices for music and arts festivals, including examples such as choosing a tour bus that runs on renewable biodiesel.

Several festivals are developing their own methods of going easy on the atmosphere.

Gurten’s initiative is supported by BKW, Berne’s major electricity supplier, and encourages participation by charging deposit of one Swiss Franc on every plate.

There are three points on the 15,000-capacity site where the plates can be returned for collection and speedy delivery to the Biogas plant three miles away at Ittigen.

The production of energy from renewable sources is a priority of EnergieSchweiz, the climate protection programme run by the government and industry in cooperation with each of the 26 regional cantons.

Festival chief Philippe Cornu is confident the crowd numbers for this year’s July 19-22 gathering will be back on track, following the 20 percent drop caused by last year’s World Cup soccer finals.

He believes that 10,000 Swiss traveled to neighboring Germany to watch the matches and, coupled with a market that shows signs of becoming overcrowded (again), that was more than enough to drive ticket sales down.

"Suddenly the whole nation became very proud of its football team and it seemed everyone was wearing a red T-shirt with a white cross on it," he told Pollstar at the time.

An average of about 11,000 per day turned up to the 15,000-capacity site overlooking Berne, which is about 2,500 per day down from what Cornu needs for the event to thrive.

Gurten wasn’t the only event to suffer. The 2006 crowds at Greenfield and St. Gallen were also down and major acts including Roger Waters, Guns N’ Roses and The Who failed to sell out.

Cornu said this year’s bill has received a better response from the media and punters. Swiss weather permitting, he’s looking to see this year’s numbers come much closer to capacity. Ticket sales are much healthier than 12 months ago.

The acts pulling the crowds include Die Fantastischen Vier, Avril Lavigne, The Roots, Joss Stone, Cypress Hill, Razorlight, The Pipettes, Donavon Frankenreiter, The Young Gods, and Peter Bjorn and John.