SUSTAINABILITY
GUIDE
Lightning In A Bottle is designed, built, and curated based on a core ethos centered on sustainability, harm reduction, cultural respect, and most of all, creating an environment for extraordinary experiences. At LIB, we maintain a fierce commitment to sustainability, especially during the festival season, to keep your experience clean and green.
Help out our Green Team in their dedicated efforts to elevate your festival experience by engaging in easy and unique ways to reduce consumption and waste. Green Team members are stewards of the Earth and are committed to reducing waste and leaving a positive impact everywhere possible.
Keep an eye out for their convenient recycling and composting initiatives around the grounds and most of all remember to bring your sorted waste and recycling to the Waste Collection Stations (WCS) in the camp plazas before you leave, unless you are taking your waste home with you! We hope these tips help make your experience all the better, while leaving you with some green tips that extend past LIB.
BEFORE THE FESTIVAL
Packing
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Take off any packaging from new or used items to reduce the amount of waste on site. Recycle and dispose of those materials at home where you are already paying for a service. Put items in reusable containers or bags, like ziplocks and tote bags.
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Reusable cups, plates, bowls, to-go containers, coffee mugs, water bottles and utensils are great in reducing a lot of waste instead of a solo cup or cheap plastic forks or spoons. Use tupperware instead of food wrapped in plastic.
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Bring rechargeable items like batteries, lights, and headlamps to reduce hazardous waste from 1 time use batteries which are considered hazardous waste and don’t go in landfill.
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Bring biodegradable toiletries; shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, sunscreen, and deodorant. Know that our lake doesn’t allow any products even if they are biodegradable and sunscreen runoff in waterways is a real problem for wildlife and other species.
Transportation
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When thinking about how to get to site; carpool, ride with friends, or use the Lightning Bus system to cut down on carbon emissions. Reserve your seat on the Lightning Bus today! View the route schedule and get tickets here.
Waste Management
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Make sure to bring your own reusable bags or containers (3x) to sort your materials into landfill, recycling, and compost so it's easy for you to drop your materials off at the Waste Collection Stations in the camp plazas and clean your camp before you leave.
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Waste Collection Stations will be open throughout the festival.
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Come to the Green Team HQ near Thunder Stage if you have any questions or would like to get involved.
DURING THE FESTIVAL
Using our Waste Collection Stations
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Sorted waste can be dropped off at indicated collection stations FREE of charge. Please see the festival map for locations.
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Please wait to be assisted by a Green Team member. Do not dump your bags and run!
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Bulky items, like camp gear, can be accepted as well. Fees may apply.
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Items in good condition will be donated and accepted FREE of charge
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PRO TIP: Why wait for your camp trash to pile up? You can take bags of sorted waste to a Waste Collection Station any day throughout the festival. You can sort it right there on the spot and Green Team will give you back your trash bag for reuse too!
Using our Sorting Stations Inside the Festival and in Campgrounds
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Color coded for easy sorting
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Green = Compost
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Blue = Recycle
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Red = Landfill
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Not sure what goes where? Check out the 3D shadow box examples at every venue station and campground plazas.
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Stations are lit up at night for you to easily find them and sort your waste.
Camp Cleanup
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Make sure to clean your campsites and don’t leave anything behind. Remind your neighbors to clean their sites as well! A little accountability goes a long way!
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At LIB, we ask everyone to be conscious and responsible for the waste they generate. If you are unwilling to take your waste home and dispose of it properly, then please bring it pre sorted to the Waste Collection Stations located in the camp plazas on a regular basis to keep your campsite clean and help us Leave It Better! We also accept donations of camping gear or other items in good, usable conditions.
Stage Cleanup
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Join Green Team and LIB in keeping our stages beautiful and ready for dancing. Clean any litter/moop (matter out of place) off the dance floors before a set, during a set while you are dancing which is a lot of fun, and after an artist finishes so by the time the next artist is up you have a clean and safe dance floor to bust a move, not your leg.
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There are sorting stations for waste, recycling and compost at every stage, just look around for the closest one to you for sorting the MOOP you find.
Lake Cleanup
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We don’t have any sorting stations near the lake. Make sure you bring back any materials you brought with you down to the lake and don’t leave any waste behind. Understand that the lake has living species in it and we are responsible for keeping their habitats clean as well as ours.
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Don’t leave any waste behind on the lakeside or in the water. This includes floaties, our #1 Lake waste nemesis!
HOW TO GET INVOLVED ONSITE
Come to the Green Team HQ located near the Thunder Stage to learn how to help out or get involved. We do daily MOOP walks and we would love your company. Hop on a volunteer shift if you have some time and want to learn more about LIB’s Green Team Motto: Leave It Better!
AFTER THE FESTIVAL
Leave it Better Map & Sustainability Report
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The Leave it Better Map indicates where and how much MOOP and waste was left behind after the festival. The map helps us understand where we manage waste well and locations that need improvement so we can continue striving to become more zero waste in the future.
Green Team Survey
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Your feedback is important to us and helps us create better systems for the future to become zero waste. We'll be sending out a Green Team survey in the weeks following the festival, please keep an eye out for it and take a few minutes to fill it out. Your insight will help us build a cleaner/ better future.
All Year Long
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The information we educate participants on isn’t just for LIB but can be used for the rest of your lifetime. Use this knowledge to help educate others as well as know how to handle the materials and waste you generate wherever you are.
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Look at the materials you are about to buy and think about what happens after you are done using it or consuming it. What is the waste that is produced after consumption? Do you still want to buy this product or can you find an alternative which creates less waste?
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What waste are you producing? Can you do something different with that waste to reuse it? If not, then look up on the website of the hauling company handling your waste to see if they can recycle it or if its Landfill. If they don’t recycle it, maybe there's a company nearby that does - research by looking at Google Maps and calling around or searching the web. If it's still landfill then you know where it goes but understand that this goes into a giant pit on the Earth. It's not out of sight, out of mind: we have no solution for the landfill we create on this planet. Just because you can burn it for energy doesn’t mean that it's a good thing and that it doesn't create carbon chemicals that are released into the air we breathe.
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If it can be recycled, your hauling company will have a list of where it goes and what stream. You can even get a deposit back on certain materials like aluminum cans, glass bottles, and certain types of plastic depending on where you live. Get your money back!
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Certain items can be hazardous and need to be taken to a specific location specializing in these materials. Some places make you pay for certain items while others will accept them free of charge. They are great places to ask about certain materials and most of the people there are really knowledgeable about waste and how to handle it properly.
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You can always ask questions. Remember this as the people and company you are paying to handle your materials will know a great deal about them. You might end up finding a better or more affordable solution by doing it yourself and hauling your own materials instead of paying your current price. You might even come to find out you can't recycle or compost. If you want to - contact your local municipality or government and start asking for it or start your own community based projects. Look online for DIY programs that can help you. People are doing this all over the world. Join the effort in creating a better world we all live on for futures to come. Your word, choice, money is what changes how we all live; if you decide to not buy something wasteful and demand for something reusable it will create the supply for that demand and can change the world.
