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Breakaway Music Festivals

Background

The Breakaway Music Festivals are a series of festivals across the US. Our team manages waste at a portion of these events and have run the waste management efforts at the Grand Rapids and Columbus events for several years. They feature pop and hip-hop artists as well as DJs at the main stage and silent discos. The two-night events bring anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 people per night.

Zero Waste Event Productions began our partnership with Breakaway Music Festival in 2018 with the Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Nashville events. Since that time, we’ve been able to divert over 25,000 lbs of material from the landfill.

Our Work

Before the Event
Our team sets out accessible and aesthetically pleasing recycling and landfill bins across the festival grounds, including VIP, backstage, and production areas.

Recycling
Our team pairs recycling bins with every trash bin to make sure attendees always have the option to recycle. We have worked with the organizers to ensure that most beverages are sold in recyclable containers.

Attendees of Breakaway Festivals are very responsive to the presence of recycling bins. Raised on a culture of recycling in school and other public places, we find that attendees consistently fill bins with clean cans and water bottles!

Sorting
At our sorting station, we double-check every bin to make sure the contamination rate is low enough that all recycling will be accepted by local recycling facilities.

Waste Reduction & Reuse
Organizers have gone above and beyond for waste reduction by providing water refill stations at several events. This not only keeps attendees hydrated on hot summer nights, but also reduces the number of single-use plastic water bottles used at the event.

Our team works hard to divert textiles from the landfill at Breakaway Events. If discarded clothing items are not able to be returned to their original owners through lost and found avenues, then we wash and donate those t-shirts, sweatshirts, bandanas, and hats to local thrift stores and charities.

Clean Grounds
Our team makes sure to give attendees a clean experience by litter-sweeping festival grounds during the event and resetting the scene at the end of each night.