How festivals can help good causes
Ever wondered what happens to all that leftover stuff at festivals? Here’s a story about how a company used A Good Thing to send some of that stuff to a good home.
How to give us all A Greener Future
With festival season now officially over for the year, it’s as important as ever to make sure the breakdown of these massive gatherings happens as sustainably as possible. The not-for-profit A Greener Future (AGF) is a company that assesses live events and helps make them more sustainable and eco-friendly across their operations.
Victoria, one of AGF’s sustainability consultants, told us that they utilise every avenue available to find each redundant item a good home; this ranges from putting useful products outside the venues for the public to take to donating leftover catering items to food banks. Something she has found useful for their mission, however, is A Good Thing.
A Good Thing for A Greener Future
With the massive amounts of items that need rehoming, A Good Thing has become a part of Victoria’s process. She said that festivals always have such a large variety of items left over, and finding them an immediate home can be challenging. “We have had things ordered accidentally before, like rolls of velcro - these things would just go in the bin otherwise.” Through A Good Thing, she has donated these items to good causes; the velcro was collected by a community association for arts and crafts projects. Victoria continued, “when chatting with people, I always tell them about A Good Thing. It’s a great tool and has been so useful, especially when there’s too much for me to do.”
Among the many items A Greener Future has listed through A Good Thing, one donation travelled only a stone’s throw from its original home at Uber One presents All Points East to Manorfield Primary School in Tower Hamlets. I spoke to Paul from the Manorfield Foundation to find out where this donation is now.
Greener in the city
Located in Tower Hamlet’s high deprivation areas, the Manorfield Charitable Foundation supports the children and families at the Primary School. “The charity aims to enhance children's life chances by providing resources and opportunities to address inequalities”, Paul told us. Their work focuses on “improving children's well-being, supporting families, and ensuring access to enriching experiences both inside and outside the classroom”.
The tarps that were donated by Victoria now live in the Foundation’s storage ready to be used over and over again whenever needed for a range of activities; this includes shelter building, rain covering for outdoor activities where children would have previously got wet, and ground covers to help the children garden. Having these tarps “has saved us money,” Paul said; “this donation will make a huge difference to all we do.”
A brighter future
Thanks to people like Victoria and Paul, we can enjoy the festivals yet to come knowing that our impact might not only be minimised, but actually used for good. This match is one of many that demonstrate how easy it can be to help the environment through local sharing and support.
A big thank you to everyone involved in this match!