Music festivals across the United States and beyond are big business, and for all the talk of sustainability, the bottom line usually wins out
A recent report from the town of Indio, where the festival is held, said just 20 percent of total waste is recycled at Coachella as well as organizer Goldenvoice's other festivals including Stagecoach.
Image: Maggy Donaldson / AFP
Coachella brings adrenaline-fueled sets to hundreds of thousands of festival-goers who gather in the California desert—and it also leaves behind a lot of trash.
Beyond the plastic cups and water bottles strewn about each day, there's also the immense energy use of floodlights and earsplitting speakers.
Coachella is far from alone: music festivals across the United States and beyond are big business, and for all the talk of sustainability, the bottom line usually wins out.
The carbon footprint of throngs of people, along with artists and their entourages, traveling to attend such festivals should not be underestimated, says Kim Nicholas, a climate scholar at Sweden's Lund University.
"That's way bigger than the energy and waste use in production at the festival itself," she told AFP.