DON’T THROW IT ALL AWAY, HEBCELT FANS URGED
News Release
Hebridean Celtic Festival
Year of Natural Scotland
- HebCelt trialling recycle and reward scheme
- Festival goers to help environmental project
- Prizes on offer for saving on waste
Picture caption: Richard Lochhead, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment, at a Recycle and Reward machine.
Music fans attending this year’s Hebridean Celtic Festival could swap garbage for gifts and discards for drinks by returning their empties.
HebCelt is one of eight venues in Scotland to host innovative schemes where people are given incentives for recycling glass, aluminium and plastic drinks containers.
The award-winning festival, which is celebrating its 18th anniversary this year and based in Stornoway in the island of Lewis, will have Recycle and Reward machines on its main site to encourage recycling.
As well as helping the environment, festival goers can receive prizes by taking part. Among the prizes on offer are an iPad, iPod Nanos, a family weekend ticket for next year’s HebCelt, festival hoodies and t-shirts as well as vouchers for snacks or drinks.
The Recycle and Reward scheme was launched earlier this year by Richard Lochhead, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment, who said small schemes like this can have a big impact on the environment.
It is hoped that the local pilot projects, part of the Scottish Government’s Zero Waste Scotland programme, will encourage people to recycle more and limit the amount of used drinks containers going to landfill.
Mr Lochhead said each year, around 22,000 tonnes of plastic drinks bottles alone go to landfill in Scotland. If that was separated for recycling it could be worth around £6 million to the economy.
The project is the latest green initiative by HebCelt which last month graduated from the Carbon Trust Scotland’s Carbon Management programme. The festival is committed to decreasing its carbon emissions by 14 per cent by 2017 which will reduce its environmental impact and cut costs.
The Hebridean Celtic Festival Trust has drawn up a series of long-term aims to help minimise the event’s impact on the environment. This includes the sustainable use of resources, reducing emissions and raising awareness of environmental matters among volunteers, suppliers, contractors, artists and festival goers.
Caroline MacLennan, the festival director, said “We are delighted to host a recycle and reward scheme which is another opportunity for us to encourage festival goers to think about the environment while enjoying the event.
“We are determined to make the festival one of the most environmentally-friendly in the country and this is another step towards achieving that goal.”
The Recycle and Reward schemes are being piloted at 12 Scottish locations, including retail outlets, event venues, shopping centres, schools and colleges. These will be independently monitored and evaluated to assess the potential impact the roll-out of similar schemes could have on recycling rates in Scotland.
Iain Gulland, Director, Zero Waste Scotland, said: “It’s vital that we consider fresh approaches to boosting recycling rates and capturing the value of materials which would otherwise be sent straight to landfill. Through this pilot we want to assess the impact of this approach which has proved successful around the world, including in Germany, South Australia and Scandinavia.
“It’s important we change the way people view waste in Scotland and we’ll be looking at how incentivising these recycling schemes impacts on recycling rates and complements other schemes designed to capture valuable materials, including kerbside, recycling centres and banks.”
This year’s HebCelt, which will be held from 17-20 July, will be headlined by Van Morrison, Dougie MacLean, Capercaillie, The Battlefield Band and the Red Hot Chilli Pipers.
It attracts interest from across the world and was recently selected as one of the Top 10 UK summer festivals by influential music publication Songlines for the third successive year.
Tickets have already been snapped up by fans across the UK and Ireland, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America.
The line-up also includes Karine Polwart, Darrell Scott, Pete Roe, Paddy Callaghan, and local artists Iain Morrison, The Boy who Trapped the Sun and Face the West, as well as Dundee’s Anderson, McGinty, Webster, Ward & Fisher; Lau, voted ‘Best Group’ at this year’s Radio Two Folk Awards; Orcadian eight-piece The Chair; The Hot Seats, from Virginia; Manchester outfit The Travelling Band; Welsh band Rusty Shackle; Fatherson and The Dirty Beggars and Donald MacDonald & The Islands, from Glasgow, Rose Parade, a four-piece from Ayr and Gria, winners of this year’s One Step Further competition.
For further information contact
John Ross
Lucid PR
01463 724593; 07730 099617
johnross@lucidmessages.com
NOTES TO EDITORS
The 18th HebCelt takes place between 17-20 July, 2013 and will have two main stages on the Castle Green in front of the Lews Castle in Stornoway, as well as performances in An Lanntair and throughout the rural community.
This year the festival has been selected for the third year in succession as one of the top ten UK summer festivals by music magazine Songlines. It emerged victorious as Best Large Festival at the industry-sponsored Scottish Event Awards 2011, in a three-way final with Edinburgh’s Hogmanay and Glasgow’s Celtic Connections.
Visitors from Algeria, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and the US made the journey to Lewis last year, as well as many from across the UK.
The overseas contingent helped swell the ranks of a 120-strong volunteer army that contributed over 3,500 unpaid man hours over the course of the four days.
HebCelt is supported by Creative Scotland, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and Highlands & Islands Enterprise and injects more than £1.5 million annually into the local economy.
It is regarded by critics, performers and festival-goers as one of the top Celtic music festivals in Europe and has twice won the Best Event of the Year award at the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards, which is voted for by the public.
HebCelt has been hailed as one of the UK’s top 50 festivals by the Daily Telegraph and one of the top five by The Scotsman.
The festival has its own YouTube channel, Facebook and Twitter outlets.
http://www.youtube.com/user/hebceltfest
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hebridean-Celtic-Festival/70400006768?ref=ts
http://twitter.com/#!/hebcelt/
Tags:
