Cambridge Folk Festival bans single use plastic

This year, Cambridge Folk Festival will have an absolute minimal amount of single use plastic on site, and a complete ban on disposable plastic bottles. This mile-stone has been achieved thanks to a partnership with Cambridge Water, the local water provider for the city of Cambridge. The initiative has meant that the festival has been able to buy a stock of stainless steel, thermal bottles for use backstage year on year, cutting the number of plastic bottles down by 15,000 at this year’s festival alone. This sits alongside a blanket ban on sales of disposable water bottles at the site, where people are encouraged to bring along their own refillable ones.

To add an element of fun to refilling, Cambridge Water will be on site all weekend with their brand new Water Bar, where you can pull a pint of water like you’re at the bar, and stay refreshed. The Water Bar premiered at another Cambridge City Council event, the Big Weekend in July and was hugely popular.

A proud holder of an “Outstanding” rating from A Greener Festival, the Festival is known for its green credentials. These include using 100% renewable electricity, providing excellent public transport options and a large bike parking area, planting trees to balance the Festival’s carbon footprint, increasing vegetarian and vegan food offerings, sourcing more local traders to reduce the carbon from their travel, and making the environment an important item of the programme of talks in the Flower Garden.

Since switching to a cup exchange scheme at its bars several years ago, the Festival has prevented over a staggering 1 million plastic cups from entering the waste system.