Rhythm and Vines clean-up of Waiohika Estate and nearby areas could take two weeks

By Isra’a Emhail of RNZ

Up to 200 Gisborne community members will spend about two weeks cleaning up the sprawling 700,000sq m Waiohika Estate and nearby areas after about 20,000 festival-goers flocked there for Rhythm and Vines.

Among them are Ryan Majstrovic and some students from Lytton High School, where Majstrovic works as a Japanese language teacher, and other community members.

“You’d be surprised who’s willing to pick up rubbish,” he said. “Honestly, I’ve had people from all walks of life through from the unemployed [to] people with affiliations that most people would turn their nose up with, we’ve had police detectives on the job – we’ve had the full range.”

Rhythm and Vines employs about 100 waste management staff during the event. Photo / Rhythm and Vines

The school’s community joins as part of a fundraiser to help students go abroad for extracurricular activities, with Rhythm and Vines submitting a donation in return for each hour spent helping, Majstrovic said.

As of Friday, he estimated there were more than 40 cubic metres of rubbish in the carpark area alone and two skip bins full of gumboots.

Were there any surprise finds along the way? “The short answer is yes, the longer answer is you don’t wanna know.”

The teacher is no stranger to lending a hand and has assisted in various capacities at the music festival over the past 20 years. But this year’s challenge for the crew has been the wet grounds after heavy rain hit the region.

“It’s very muddy and most people would consider it unpleasant, but it’s rewarding when you’re tidying up what’s a beautiful location.”

Gisborne's community members helping in the Rhythm and Vines 2024 clean-up efforts. Photo / Rhythm and Vines

How does it all work?

Head of operations Dan Turner said about 100 people are employed as waste management staff, patrolling the site about 21 hours a day on shifts while the event is ongoing.

The night shift staff start about 1am or 2am, scouring the empty festival grounds until 7am.

“There’s usually about 40 to 50 of those overnight. Then the day shift will come in and that’s sort of around the 70 to 80 mark, and they come in, they’re servicing bins, servicing the festival site throughout.”

The organisers estimate about 65 tonnes of waste was collected from the event last year.

The camping set-up at new year's music festival Rhythm and Vines at Waiohika Estate, where camping capacity increased from 15,000 to 20,000 this year.

After New Year’s Day, there are up to 200 local community members engaged to help with the clean-up, which takes about seven days for the festival area and then about two weeks to cover the entire grounds and nearby areas, he said.

This includes two to three teams scanning the main route to the festival, picking up any rubbish that might get discarded from cars going as far down as 100m into the side roads. One of these teams also looks into Gray’s Bush Scenic Reserve, which last year was found littered after the event.

A dedicated team sorts the collected rubbish from recyclables to general waste.

The main culprit in waste - tents

Turner said one of the main culprits in landfill waste from the event is tents and camping equipment, with many festival-goers buying cheap ones which they deem to be “disposable” or leaving them behind in the carnage of the weather.

Despite the growth in camping capacity from 15,000 to 20,000 this year, Turner believed organisers managed to combat any potential increase in waste by implementing strategies such as a bookatent initiative.

It allows festival-goers to hire tents, with about 1500 tents available to accommodate about 3500 people and these can be used in the future years.

Organisers have also ensured the serveware and cutlery from on-site food vendors is biodegradable and compostable, and there are reusable cups and bottles, Turner said.

“What we try and do is we actually try and keep like almost a circular economy and we close the loop. So what we put out over our stalls and our bars is all recyclable and it’s all multi-use or compostable products to remove that plastic waste that you potentially get with any event of this size or … we would have got maybe five to 10 years ago.

“That’s to try and keep Tai Rāwhiti beautiful, that’s to try and keep the environs as pristine as what we found them.”

Majstrovic said it’s positive to see this change, “because if this was all plastic, it would be a nightmare”.

- RNZ

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