The Boardmasters surf and music festival has revealed its sustainability plans for 2018.
Taking place from August 8-12 across two locations at Watergate Bay and Fistral Beach, Boardmasters festival organisers have come up with a “newly-developed strategy to ensure the cleanest, most environmentally-friendly and thoroughly enjoyable festival to date”.
Last weekend, Boardmasters hosted two major beach cleans with charity partner Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), as part of the ‘Big Spring Beach Clean’ campaign.
200 kilos of marine litter were collected by hundreds of volunteers over the weekend. On Fistral Beach on Saturday alone, 57kg of plastic pollution was cleared, 40% of this was avoidable plastics. Plastic Free Newquay will now begin work with 300 students from Tretherras School as part of Newquay’s Art8 Festival to create an art installation to raise awareness of marine litter.
In its sustainability strategy, Boardmasters has unveiled its key goals and overall plans to implement them for the next three years. These goals include continuing to reduce the amount of single-use plastic items used on site such as water bottles and cups, to levels close to zero, reduction in overall waste generated by the event, increasing site-wide recycling, reducing its carbon footprint and plans to continue working harmoniously with the local community and environment.
For the first time ever, this year Boardmasters will implement a re-usable cup scheme, running across all main on-site bars which will significantly reduce the amount of single-use plastic generated.
Boardmasters will also continue its work with Cornwall’s ‘Final Straw’ initiative, with no plastic straws available on site – this was first implemented on site in 2015 with great success.
Behind the scenes, Boardmasters festival organisers will be reviewing its inventory and working out which items or materials brought onto site can be cut or replaced with a more efficient or sustainable alternative.
