WOMADelaide today announced that the 2016 festival diverted 98% of all waste away from landfill, as the festival continues the strive to become a completely zero-waste-to-landfill festival. Working alongside South Australian companies Adelaide Green Clean and Jeffries, WOMADelaide minimised its environmental impact through rigorous sustainability measures across the park, including 100% compostable cups, plates, crockery, serviettes and the inclusion of additional segmented recycling and organic waste bins across the festival site.
 
“Again diverting 98% of waste away from landfill is another great result for the 2016 festival” said WOMADelaide Director, Ian Scobie, “WOMADelaide has always strived to be an industry leader and facilitate methods and practices that lead towards leaving a minimal environmental footprint, and through our ongoing relationships with Adelaide Green Clean we will continue to strive to become a complete zero-waste-to-landfill festival.”
 
Adelaide Green Clean Managing Director, Jordan Walsh, highlighted the growing importance of reusing and recycling waste at events and festivals such as WOMADelaide. “It has been great to work with WOMADelaide over the last 2 years to implement and deliver a waste management program that sees 98% of the waste from the festival go into a sustainable path for reuse or recycling” said Mr Walsh.

“We have been able to deliver these results through our ‘Green Loop’ program, which offers end to end sustainable solutions for events, and is a program that played a crucial role in Adelaide Green Clean winning the SA Business of the Year at the Telstra Business Awards on Tuesday night.”

The collected waste from the 2016 WOMADelaide festival is converted to organic mulch by Adelaide business Jeffries, who, in collaboration with Adelaide Green Clean and WOMADelaide, will deliver 16 tonnes of Jeffries Recover Mulch to the Botanic Gardens of South Australia. Botanic Gardens of South Australia Acting Director, Janice Goodwins, said WOMADelaide’s 2016 festival reinforced its lofty environmental credentials and put it a step closer to the zero-waste-to-landfill milestone.

“Like the Gardens, WOMADelaide is steadfast in its commitment to protecting the environment, and we’re pleased that festivalgoers’ waste will again be returned to Botanic Park’s soil to enrich our world-class living collections,” Ms Goodwins said.

Sustainable waste management is an important part of the operating considerations of WOMADelaide and the Botanic Gardens of South Australia, and Adelaide Green Clean works with the festival and festival patrons to further develop the ‘zero-waste-to-landfill’ solution to WOMADelaide by diverting waste away from landfill and into sustainable pathways.