BEING GREEN

Part of what makes FollyFest so great is our wonderful town and the environment that surrounds it. This is why we’re working on ways to reduce the environmental impact of our festival.

During the festival all bars and drinks outlets in the town will be required to serve takeaway drinks in the reusable FollyFest cup. Just pay a small deposit for your cup at the start of the weekend and then use it again and again for drinks at any participating venues. Once the festival is over you can choose to keep your cup as a souvenir, or return it to get your deposit refunded. 

We request that all traders refrain from packaging their foods in single use plastic. This includes the sale of drinks and water in plastic bottles.

We also encourage all festival goers to bring their own containers for take-away food, cold and hot drinks to really help reduce waste. However please refrain from bringing glass containers into the festival areas for safety reasons.

Our local waste provider is helping us ensure that our waste will be diverted from landfill. Instead it will be sent to an energy recovery centre where it’s used as fuel for renewable energy plants.

This year we have requested our stall holders refrain from selling bottled water in single use plastic. Those serving drinks are required to do so in, infinitely recyclable, aluminium cans or to support the use of the FollyFest cup. But we’re also switching the water we provide to our performers to plastic-free options. You of course refill your FollyFest cup with tap water for free at any of the participating venues.

Where possible we’re reusing decor, signage and props from previous years events. When we need to create something new we try to use reclaimed materials or materials which can be re-used or recycled at the end of their life. Watch out for FollyFest bunting and flags appearing at other events across the town!

Our music stages use LED lighting which is much more efficient than incandescent bulb types helping reduce the amount of energy needed to keep us rocking into the night!

We encourage all attendees, performers and volunteers to come to the festival by foot, pedal power or public transport. We aim to book as many local performers, stall holders and service providers as possible also helping to reduce transport emissions.

We’re going digital with our programs and flyers, helping to reduce the amount of paper and printing we do. Instead you’ll spot QR codes dotted about the site which will take you to our full events program for the day or you can visit our website anytime in the run up to the festival for the most up to date information. We are also working with our media partner The Advertiser, to print a FollyFest schedule in the July copy of the magazine, so no need for separate printed programmes

We are proud to support green organisations such as the Wildlife Trust amongst our stall holders. As well as using our social channels and the festival itself to promote the the UK Government’s declaration of a climate emergency and Faringdon Town Councils’ commitment to making Faringdon a plastic free community.

We are a volunteer run event; we sometimes get things wrong. If you see a way for us to make FollyFest more sustainable please, get in touch and let us know – Even better, please come and join the organising committee. Reach out to chair@faringdonfollyfest.co.uk