You might also like:
I’ve heard the phrase, “the playa gives you the burn you need, not the burn you want.” Over the past several years I’ve been inching closer and closer towards the goal of a sustainable life. Perhaps the challenges my camp presented me with were a gift, in a way – a reminder that this is an issue I care about, and a push to find a way to have those uncomfortable conversations both in person and here on my blog.
Burning Man is defined by its ten principles, and the founders are not shy about calling “leave no trace” the most important principle of all. I’ve poured a lot of time and a lot of love into creating this list of tips and resources — from easy-enough-for-anyone to damn-you’re-dedicated for how to green your burn. Some I’ve personally tried and tested, others I look forward to exploring for future burns. Green on, friends!
Sophmore Stuff
• Recycle cans in Black Rock City: Bring a large from Reno or San Francisco. You’ll be rewarded with a dedicated bus lane at the gate to bypass traffic and specially reserved camping spots.
• Radically express yourself responsibly: I’m definitely guilty of buying cheap, unsustainably and unethically produced clothes for festivals. . It’s a great souvenir to bring home from the playa!
• Go solar: Interested in using alternative energy on the playa? Learn more at
on the environment. There are extremists who believe that Burning Man shouldn’t exist because of the carbon footprint it takes for its participants to get there. (Others point out that Burning Man takes 68,000 people off the roads, off the power grid and off other natural resource drains for a week, which balances out the energy it took to get them there.)
My perspective is that people have been finding ways to gather and put themselves face to face with other people since the beginning of time. Traveling for networking conferences, religious pilgrimages, celebratory festivals, sporting competitions and creative collaborations — these are all important parts of what it is to be human. Sustainability needs to be just that — . Ideas are infectious, and I think giving up festivals would be cutting off people’s exposure to a lot of important ones.
Frankly, I think a lot of people pick on Burning Man in particular because Burning Man places an enormous emphasis on leaving no trace, in the same way that the media criticizes Leonardo Dicaprio for flying a private plane while daring to be an outspoken environmentalist. (You don’t hear the same loud criticisms lobbed at celebrities or festivals who make no public effort toward being green.) No singular person and certainly no gathering of thousands of persons is going to be perfectly sustainable. What we should be, always, is striving ever closer to it.
Burning Man, for many people, has become not so much the way they spend their lives for one week out of the year, but rather a way of thinking and acting all year round. The process of leaving no trace should be started before one even leaves their home for the desert, and should in fact carry over into one’s daily life, because the entire planet on which we live deserves to be treated with the same sense of reverence as the playa. — Burning Man
How do you green your festival going? Let’s start a conversation in the comments!
Source: alexinwanderland.com