# briefing
Drew Wong
Drew Wong
True to their original low-impact vision, the organisers employed a variety of minimal waste strategies in the design of the whole festival, eliminating as much plastic as they could – plastic known to be lethal to marine life, especially tao, or turtles!
Bamboo, a sustainable and biodegradable material, featured significantly throughout the event, used in everything from drinks to merchandising. All drinks were served in cups made of bamboo. A deposit for each cup was required, incentivising the purchaser to reuse or at least bring back the cup for reuse and proper disposal. Reusable food trays were also made of bamboo with a banana leaf base, and official festival T-shirts by Rip Curl were made from bamboo rayon. Even eating utensils were made of wood, instead of the usual disposable plastic.
Drinking water was provided free of charge and stainless steel canteens were on sale to help party-goers stay hydrated at the festival and beyond. At other music festivals, these water canteens are usually banned as a security( or profit?) hazard.
The availability of ashtrays all over the venues was particularly impressive. At other music festivals, from Glastonbury to Ultra, party goers throw their cigarette butts on the ground for the cleaning crews to deal with. But the organisers of the Tao Festival, mindful of the fact that cigarette butts pollute huge quantities of sea water and take decades to decompose, had provided ashtrays and litter bins throughout the venues. It was the cleanest beach party I’ ve been to, cleaner even than your average beach club!
The acts and festival overall were absolutely wonderful. The Thai bands were awesome and very danceable despite the language barrier. Arrested Development played an amazingly tight set to a near capacity crowd! Pillow Talk Mikey Tello and Alex Barck closed out a rain hit festival
with some sick mixes! It was probably one of the best festivals I’ ve been to, and one of the major reasons I could freely enjoyed the music was the considerably lower environmental impact, and that’ s something we all have to consider now more than ever!
By now, you must be wondering if this is about a music festival or about waste management … Well, as it turns out these two things aren’ t mutually exclusive. The Tao Festival proves that thoughtful planning and conscientious scubadiving-party-goers are a winning combination – this event easily rivals some of the other, more famous festivals around the world.
Scuba diving really does serve to wake people up to the beauty of Nature and encourage us to take better care of it; that’ s something to celebrate, and the Tao Festival is a great way to do it! SDAA
Drew Wong
8 SDAA