Laura Tynan from Hamilton captured footage of the "disgusting" aftermath that spread across the ground of the Six60 concert held at Western Springs last year. Photo / Laura Tynan
Laura Tynan from Hamilton captured footage of the "disgusting" aftermath that spread across the ground of the Six60 concert held at Western Springs last year. Photo / Laura Tynan
Organisers of big outdoor events in Wellington could soon be required to front up on how they're going to recycle the mess leftover from their parties.
New rules proposed for outdoor events with more than 1000 people are being considered this week in the city council's Solid Waste Management and Minimisation bylaw.
Under it, organisers will have to submit a plan to the council at least 10 working days before an event outlining measures in place to maximise the collection of recyclables, an estimate of the types and amount of waste generated by the event, and how waste would be minimised.
Homegrown organiser Andrew Tuck said he welcomed the accountability.
"It's cheaper to not do it, but I've got four children and if I look at where the world's going to be in 20 years time for them, then we need to be thinking about it now. So I support it 100 per cent."
Tuck said Homegrown had already planned this year for more bins separating out different materials and a report back on what waste went where and any improvements.
But that report never came to fruition after the event was cancelled due to Covid-19.
All bottles and cups were also either recyclable or compostable, Tuck said.
"As you can imagine, 25,000 people turn over a little bit of mess so it's just making sure we're putting all of that in the right places."
Wellington's Homegrown festival was cancelled this year due to Covid-19. Photo / Supplied
Waste minimisation portfolio leader councillor Laurie Foon said she'd been told about "masses of waste" from Homegrown and has attended some council events which she thought needed to improve.
The new event waste planning rules will come into effect one year after the bylaw is first introduced and are proposed to be a regionally consistent standard.
Concert promoter Phil Sprey was generally supportive of the new bylaw as long as it wasn't policed in a heavy-handed way.
"People don't like to be told what to do, if you leave it to people's common sense, they'll generally comply.
"But if you start to overtly police it or put up big ugly signs saying what you must do and that you're being watched, it can swing the pendulum the other way and a good night out becomes a look over you shoulder night that's no longer fun."
A post-event cleaning crew member sweeps up rubbish amidst the "hail" of plastic after an Eminem concert at Sky Stadium last year. Photo / Supplied
The rules exclude open-aired stadiums and regularly occurring recreational activities like weekly sporting events.
But it's concerts held at stadiums which have seen the issue of waste from large events gain traction in recent times.
"I just saw a sea of plastic, it looked like it had hailed," he said.
But Sky Stadium chief executive Shane Harmon said all those cups were recycled and considerable progress has been made on reducing waste to landfill over the past two years.
Only a quarter of the total waste from Eminem's concert was sent to landfill compared with more than half at the 2017 Guns n Roses concert.
Harmon said the stadium was conducting research around reusable cups, a policy which he hoped would be in place for events within the next 12 months.
