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Folks on the Rocks goes green Festival organizers and Ecology North working to make the festival more enviro-friendly
Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Friday, July 19, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Folk on the Rocks has been environmentally friendly in recent years, and efforts are underway to make it even greener, according to the event's executive director, Penny Ruvinsky.
One of those efforts is to introduce more compostable goods.
Paper plates, napkins, meat scraps and even the cups in the beer garden will be compostable thanks to the festival using the centralized compost system piloted by Ecology North in recent years.
"A lot of people aren't clear on what they can compost versus what goes in the garbage," said Dawn Tremblay, Ecology North's executive director.
She said there will be three bins at each venue during Folk on the Rocks, one for garbage, one for recycling and then one for compost.
"We also recommend that people slam dunk their junk, make the most with their compost and be a sustain-er with their beverage container," she said with a grin.
Tremblay said there will also be a plate and cutlery rental service at the festival, which she hopes will cut down on paper plates.
For the past decade, festival co-ordinators have teamed up with Ecology North to create a plan for the festival to help make it more environmentally friendly.
For the festival, Ecology North plans how waste is going to be maintained and disposed of, and hires volunteers to do the job.
Meanwhile, organizers of the festival handle the broader scope, such as organizing bus rides for concert-goers and volunteers to and from the festival site.
The hourly bus service runs from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. It also runs early enough for festival volunteers to be able to use it.
Ruvinsky said there are many future plans on how to make the show more environmentally friendly, such as utilizing solar power instead of the traditional power grid.
She said she also had the idea of powering the children's stage by bicycle power which children and, if they can be convinced, their parents would operate.
For the past 33 years, the landscape that houses the festival has taken a beating, said Ruvinsky, and she hopes in the future work can be done to restore it.
"Folk on the Rocks is looking to become a really good ambassador for greening the North," she said.
"There is always talk everywhere else about how badly the resource industry has depleted the North, and we want the festival to be one of those resources that is in fact building the North rather than depleting it."
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