BYE BYE PLASTIC STRAWS

We're getting rid of plastic straws at Roskilde Festival.

We used about 475,000 plastic straws at last year’s festival.

They were made of biodegradable plastic (corn starch or cane), but it was nonetheless single use plastic that was bought, transported and used once, only to be thrown away.

This year we’re ditching plastic straws as the mandatory accessory to your drinks.

This is the deal:

• We will remove all plastic straws from the stalls and bars.
• You can purchase FSC-certified paper straws for 5 DKK. The price is meant to keep the use to a minimum. We’re not looking to merely replace the use of plastic straws with a different kind of straw.
• Festival-goers who use straws because of a disability naturally won’t have to pay anything for a straw.
• If you buy slush ice or milkshake, you will get a free paper straw. Those things are practically impossible to drink without a straw.

So what is our beef with straws?

We think most of us can easily last a week of festivities without automatically having a straw thrown in our drinks.

We have until now purchased straws made of bioplastic. But it has nevertheless been for single use. This is plastic that we can easily do without in a time when plastic is already everywhere.

Yes, we know that the absence of plastic straws at Roskilde Festival won’t stop climate change. But even a small change can contain a bigger picture if it manages to affect our habits – and makes of reconsider our consumption.

And it’s not just your habits we’re talking about. We’re also trying to challenge our own ways and routines when developing the festival and creating the framework for your festival experience – in a festival ‘city’ that corresponds to the fourth largest city in Denmark by population. Collectively, this consumption amounts to quite a lot and a lot of people’s habits that can potentially be changed.

When we’re at a festival together, we can make a difference together.

We have an ambition of minimising consumption – and particularly plastic consumption – year by year and start a dialogue about the bigger picture while doing it.

As you may have heard, we are also replacing disposable plastic cups with cups that we can reuse and recycle.

But where else can we bring down our consumption – together – at the festival?

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