July 5, 2011 - Bonnaroo: 10 Year Anniversary!

Stumbling onto the small town that is Bonnaroo is always an overwhelming experience, and it’s 10 year anniversary this year was absolutely no exception.

An event whose heat was intense as it’s musical lineup was a well organized, green, and orderly event with a plethora of volunteers who made sure that the thousands of pounds of trash created by the event’s occupants was properly disposed of in an effective manor. I was absolutely impressed with the fact that there was no shortage of places to dispose of waste, and also no shortage of volunteers to guide you to the correct bin to dispose of either items that were compostable, plastic, or needed to unfortunately end up in the landfill. 

On top of how orderly the trash was handled there was also the solar stage, which generated most of it’s power from large solar panels to the left of the platform. Even though it was a small stage, it’s exciting to think about the prospects of what may come in the future of Bonnaroo in terms of being a solar event. There was certainly no shortage of sun!

Although Bonnaroo’s excellent planning stifled the destructive nature of a musical festival, it’s difficult to account for human error. It was disappointing to see that despite the fact that there were plenty of locations to dispose of trash, people chose to take the easy route and just throw it on the ground. Waking up early was always interesting because the volunteers always had it all cleaned up by the time the first bands would come on around noon.

I’ll end with an aerial shot of the event at it’s close. In the photo you can see the amount of recyclable items that are held on the premises for close to a week after all of its patrons depart. During this week trash is sorted to be disposed of properly. Despite the fact that there is a great room for improvement, Bonnaroo handled the waste of its patrons with ease and to improve upon the system they’ve already created would take another year of planning. I’m excited to see what’s in store for next year!