Rethink Waste at Thrive Festival

March 2023 | Bellingen, NSW, Australia

Thrive festival saw the Bellingen Shire come together learning, connecting and enjoying a range of workshops, speakers, trade stalls, food vendors, entertainment, emergency services stalls and more.

With a strong focus on reducing waste the 1500+ people event saw less than two standard red bins of waste generated. This was achieve by the Rethink Team commitment to the following initiatives and practices:

advising all stall holders to keep packing to a minimum and to use compostable where possible
Running washing station providing clean tableware for food and drink vendors to serve on
Assisting patrons to sort their waste into co-mingled recycled items, compostable items and landfill
Collecting compostable items and transporting them to the community gardens to breakdown into compost.
Sorting waste at the bins and eliminating single use packaging (compostable and plastics) saved a significant amount of waste going to landfill. An outstanding success for the Rethink Program!

"An absolute highlight was that the whole festival ran without disposable dishes. It shows it is possible to reduce waste. I was also impressed with the 3 bin system and the people volunteering at the stations."

- Attendee
"It gives me hope on a bigger scale. And it helps keep me more accountable personally."

- Attendee
"Knowing there will be less plastic in the environment warms my heart. Just sad there is so much there already."

- Attendee

198L

of compostable materials diverted from landfill

< 200L

of waste generated at THRIVE, with more than 1500 in attendance!

Outputs and Outcomes

1 event
21 volunteers
1500 attendees
1 washing station
200L composted
1000L saved from landfill*
Connections amongst Rethink volunteers, community members and partners strengthened.
Bellingen Show Society, The Readers and Writers Festival and Camp Creative have contacted OzGREEN and are interested to team up and find out how they can reduce waste at their events.

*This event generated very little waste because of the washing station and education at and before the event. The waste reduction of this event has been estimated from benchmarking quantities of waste generated at similar events.