by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
For the upcoming festival season the Real Green Retail group has compiled a list of products and advice to provide festival goers with the materials and information they need to have their greenest festival ever in 2009. As festival revelers enjoy the great outdoors, they can also respect the environment around them at the same time.
Let's hope they will actually consider the environment, for too often, while they come from the what was once called the “alternative scene” where the environment was high on the agenda when they are high on something or other often the surroundings are no longer considered and the area is left full of litter. This year, hopefully, this could change.
The Real Green Retail Group, who prepared the guide, is a group of ethical retailers who jointly have over 160 years of experience in pioneering ethical choices.
Here is are some suggestions from the Real Green Retail Group as to the things that are needed for the green festival goer:
· Fresh organic cotton t-shirts - 3 or 4 required to see any festival goer through a weekend in style. Slogans are particularly good to let the world know what you are thinking about the world around you – Greenfibres has a good selection.
· Organic deodorant - In case you run out of clean t-shirts
· Organic food, wine & a bottle crusher - Organic meat for the BBQ (not forgetting the vegetables), organic fruit to maximize you energy and fresh bread and cakes to share with your new friends – a weekend hamper can be ordered in advance from Graig Farm’s online store. Vintage Roots and Vinceramos have an excellent range of organic wines, beers and spirits. A handy bottle crusher from The Green Shop is vital to maximize space in the recycle bins
· Green stationery - A notepad and pen to note the details of your new festival friends or write required signage e.g. “Do not disturb’ or ‘Wake by 4pm’. Green Stationery has a good selection.
· Ethical lighting - A solar or LED torch to find your way home from the Green Shop, or better still even a wind-up LED torch. There are many available and look out for Lidl in the next week or so where they have small wind-up LED torches for less than GBP 4 and also wind-up camping lanterns for under a tenner.
· A good eco book - Real Green Retail Group recommends James Lovelock’s latest tome, “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning”
· And, an organic bag to hold all you supplies – available from all good eco shops. On the other hand you could go for a bag made from recycled trash, available from Trashe Bolsas or from TerraCycle or other sources. Alternatively you could go to the Morsbags.com website, download the instructions and make your own tote bag to lug your supplies around from some old fabric that would otherwise go to waste.
Finally, where to go?
The Real Green Retail Group recommends The Green Man festival of course! Taking place 21-23rd August 2009 in the Brecon Beacons.*
The Real Green Retails Group is made up of ten retailers who have operated within the environmental sector for an average of 15 years providing a combined 160 years of experience in Green Retailing. Members place ethical and environmental objectives at the core of their business mission and all are SME’s with less than 50 full time equivalent employees.
The growth of ‘greening’ has meant there has been some confusion caused among the general public over what is and what is not ethical or green. The Real Green Retail Group aims to pioneer and promote real initiatives.
The further information and latest news from these companies can be found at http://www.ethical-marketing.co.uk/.
Suggested websites:
http://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk
http://www.ecology.co.uk/
http://www.greenfibres.com/
http://www.greenshop.co.uk/
http://www.vintageroots.co.uk
http://www.vinceremos.co.uk
http://www.graigfarm.co.uk/
http://www.greenstat.co.uk
*Maybe readers could recommend some more green events and festivals worth going to and maybe some of those events might be interested to contact us for a little advertising.
© 2009
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Have a greener festival this summer
