How Mumbai's popular Blues Festival Manages its Waste, and Why it Believes '100% Sustainability' is Not Possible?

Two years back, across the setup of the four-day Mahindra Blues Festival, including two festival show days and one day for dismantling, 2,060 kg of waste were diverted from landfill. Of this, 1,033.2 kg of waste were sent for recycling, while 4,800 cigarette butts were collected through dedicated cigarette collection bins and general waste bins.

Mumbai comes alive with electrifying blues sounds that echo through the city every February. While the stages roar with powerful international artists, the audiences — which include not just the young but also Bombay’s elderly — groove with drinks in their hands at the Mahindra Blues Festival. From the surface, it looks like a tidy music festival, but behind it lies the challenging mechanism of 

“Sustainability and environmental outlook have become more than a PR peg for the events ecosystem in India. Before, it was a nice piece to factor in, but slowly, it became as vital as creating the perfect consumer experience — not just from a waste diversion point of view, but also from an inclusive effort point of view,” believes V. G. Jairam, the founder of Hyperlink Brand Solutions, which organises the Mahindra Blues Festival along with other festivals.

India is witnessing a continuous increase in concerts and festivals, ranging from literature festivals to various arts and cultural festivals. Very recently, the much-hyped Coldplay concert at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, which was attended by 75,000 fans, generated approximately 9,000 kilograms (9 tonnes) of waste.

Some of the common types of waste generated include plastic bottles, food containers, banned plastic bags, and cardboard food trays.

'Layered process' 

Mahindra Blues Festival, ahead of its edition in Mumbai this February, is gearing up for both the festival and preparations for waste management. Talking to Local Samosa, Mr. Jairam highlights that the process includes multiple layers. “The first layer naturally focuses on the flex or canvas printing and the various frame mounts used to display messaging at events and festivals across branding, F&B, stage graphics (if no LED is used), and so on,” he says.

Adding to this, he states, “The material, instead of being scraped and thrown away or dumped in landfills, is diverted in the right manner — some to low-income communities in rural areas to create housing coverings for people who cannot afford four-brick walls.”

From the 2024 edition of the festival, 21.1 kg of leftover food were donated to various charitable organisations, while 94.2 kg of non-recyclable waste from food stalls and venue sweeps were discarded as reject waste.

On the other hand, 582.1 kg of biodegradable waste were composted, and 178.7 kg of waste were sent for incineration at cement factories for 

Retaining the entire background process for the festival’s waste segregation, the founder says that all waste at the festival’s back-of-house and front-of-house areas is dedicatedly segregated into dry and wet waste. “It enables crew and consumers to make a conscious effort to help properly recycle and divert waste to the right streams, helping prevent the dumping of material in landfills, where it would rot away in the soil.”

However, the segregation does not stop there. “The waste collected from these trash bins goes to a sorting space (which is usually demarcated onsite at our event), and another fine comb is done to make sure the smaller pieces of waste — and sometimes to ensure that all the waste collected — is segregated correctly,” Mr. Jairam adds.

A major part of such management, however, must start in advance. “It starts with the adoption of recyclable, eco-friendly cups at festivals, which are generally made from rice husk. These are used to ditch paper and plastic and leave consumers with an eco-friendly way to refill their drinks — and then have a keepsake to take home, since these cups are generally festival- and/or event-branded.” He says that this allows for better distribution of drinking water at a festival without having to sell water in plastic bottles to consumers.

How the challenges can also depend on the cities

Even while talking about the efforts and the management process, Mr. Jairam opines that it is “almost impossible to achieve 100% sustainability on a project.” “Various factors limit what is possible and what is not possible. For example, a festival within Mumbai has a strong chance of achieving 100% sustainability, but take that same festival to a tier-2 or tier-3 city, or a bespoke destination (for those lavish luxury experiences), and it would vary.

The various factors that might have to be determined are the availability of teams, the right materials, the amount of time required to ensure the waste generated is handled properly, and the workforce available who are specially trained in waste diversion efforts,” says the organiser.

“The logistics of moving this to a location that is not easily or regularly accessed, thereby skyrocketing the costs of acquiring materials, transporting them, and the manpower to manage them, all hinder the P&L — the bread and butter of any festival promoter, be it big or small. That is the reality of it.”

So, what do these do? As Mr. Jairam opines, “It leads to brands cutting corners (despite highlighting effective waste management processes), and this is one corner that is easily cut, with little to no repercussion for the event.”

MBF, which has been partnering with various agencies and other brands to execute the process, states that there is scope for more. “There are still a few things that need to be tightened up, such as large installations made of metal or MDF (wood), which are sometimes difficult to divert correctly and do end up in landfill,” Mr Jairam says.

Nonetheless, the founder is hopeful that the festival will reach 100% sustainability at a show. “It is the future of the events scene in India and a desperate need of the hour globally!”