Page McConnell and Trey Anastasio of Phish at Festival 8 in Indio, CA. (Photo: Tim Hurst)

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Over the past year, Phish has been working with Reverb—a group borne out of the Guster organization—to organize things such as a fan rideshare program and to help calculate how many greenhouse gas offset credits the band should purchase for their tours. According to Mr. Beck, Phish has purchased enough carbon credits to offset the emissions of the entire tour—”even inclusive of all of the crew members’ flights.”

Waste Management

Landfill, Mixed Recycling, and Compost bins at Festival 8 (photo: Nick Chambers)

Aside from the reusable water bottle program discussed in a previous post, another innovative waste management practice I noticed at Festival 8 was in the labeling of the trash cans. Instead of simply having recycling and trash bins, each waste station (of which there were many) had three receptacles: Mixed Recycling, Compost, and Landfill.

Using the word “landfill” is a great way to connect you with where the stuff you are throwing away is going. Subsequently it also makes you think about which bin to put that piece of trash in. Mr. Beck indicated that Phish was sorting the recycling and conducting composting on site.

And how could you forget the Green Crew; the group of fan volunteers that clean up and recycle trash from the parking lots and other areas outside of the main venue after each show? Seriously, the Green Crew is old-school Phish. They were around before the word “green” was even in vogue.

Merchandise

According to Mr. Beck, all of the WaterWheel Foundation merchandise ever sold “has always been organic or hemp and sustainable.” But the WaterWheel Foundation merchandise by itself represents a small portion of Phish’s overall merchandise sales. Accordingly, Phish saw this as a major place to make improvements. “In the last year somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of all the Phish goods that have been introduced have either been organic cotton or made from recycled materials,” said Beck.

Social Programs

At Festival 8, an extraordinary amount of booths were set up to showcase both local and national charity and environmental organizations. They were located in high traffic areas and always seemed to have tons of people milling about and inside them.

Environmental organization, Rock the Earth, staffs a booth at Festival 8 (photo: Nick Chambers)

Referring to his own organization, Mr. Beck said “We have a lot of social programs as well through the WaterWheel Foundation. The foundation hosts a local charity everywhere we go from riverkeepers to organic farms to different groups such as battered women organizations—I believe that social and environmental causes at this point have become one and the same. A healthy community can only exist on a healthy planet and a healthy planet can only be taken care of by a healthy community.”

Well said.

Related Posts:

• Driving to Phish Festival 8 in a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid
• Clearly Ford Has a Winner: 2010 Fusion Hybrid Extended Test Drive
• Phish Reduces Water Bottle Consumption at Festival 8 With Innovative Program

Nick is the Editor of Gas 2.0

Page McConnell and Trey Anastasio of Phish at Festival 8 in California (Photo: Tim Hurst)