AUSTIN, Texas — Each year, the Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL) brings in thousands of people, and, in turn, tons of trash. But the music festival's partnership with the Austin Parks Foundation makes sure that the weekends are not an environmental nightmare.
"We want to make this festival as sustainable as possible, and these are really small things and easy things to do that make a huge impact,” said Katie Kennedy, the director of marketing and communications for the Austin Parks Foundation.
The group had three major sustainability programs at this year's ACL: the Rock & Recycle, YETI Hydration Stations and the Divert It! program.
For the Rock & Recycle program, volunteers for the foundation handed out garbage bags to festival-goers. Once they filled the bags up with recyclables, they got a T-shirt designed by local artists.
“You’re at the festival anyway,” Kennedy said. “It's easy to just carry a bag with you, and as you're walking around and enjoying the festival, you get to pick up the trash and make a difference for the for the festival.”
Kennedy said after the first weekend of the festival, people had already picked up 4,000 bags.
"I actually was there, and I was commenting that there really isn't a lot of garbage on the ground, so they're really doing a good job of keeping the fest sustainable,” Kennedy said.
Hydration stations are another way to keep the festival sustainable. ACL guests could bring their reusable water bottle from home to fill up at the festival.
"That cuts down on thousands of bottles of plastic water bottles that we don't have to, you know, recycle as part of the festival,” Kennedy said.
Finally, the Divert It! program educated people on how to properly recycle their trash.
"I think ACL was the first festival that implemented these programs, so we want to be at the forefront in leading that, you know, sustainability effort,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy believes that sentiment is shared by many Austinites.
"People here love live music, they love the environment, they love our park system,” Kennedy said. “So it's really cool to see all of that come together."
Over the course of the Austin Parks Foundation’s 18-year partnership with ACL, they've raised $50 million for Austin's parks through a portion of wristband sales. Last year, $7.2 million dollars just from ACL alone went towards Austin’s parks.