Category: Featured

Greetings BYOBottle Partners!

BYOBottle partners celebrate Plastic Free July each year, shining the spotlight on success stories and music industry efforts to turn the tide on plastic pollution. From venues & festivals, to artists, fans and industry partners, we are taking collective action to promote innovation and reuse. You can take the Plastic Free July Challenge, find an event near you, or explore the Changemakers Toolkit. As a BYOBottle partner, we encourage you to spread the word about Plastic Free July and share how you are taking action to reduce plastic waste, whether at a show or in your daily life. Please enjoy these partner updates and BYBottle highlights!

➤ BYOBottle – Highlights:

• BYOBottle artists, The Lumineers and their fans avoided 52,000+ single-use plastic water bottles on tour with help from greening partner REVERB. Water refill stations were provided at shows, reusable bottles & mugs were given to band and crew, and fans could donate for reusable bottles. Advance calls with promoters led to 92% of venues allowing fans to bring reusable bottles.

• BYOBottle founding artist Jack Johnson recently took the BYOBottle message on tour in the UK and Europe, incorporating plastic waste reduction into his EnviroRider and encouraging venues and festivals to join the BYOBottle campaign. Jack’s band & crew created a World Refill Day reel backstage to promote BYOBottle and reusables on tour.

• Welcome new BYOBottle Partners Eden Sessions and SunFest! SunFest provided water refill stations backstage for artists and throughout the festival for fans. As part of a #refillnotlandfill effort, Eden Sessions offers a reusable cup program for concertgoers. Cali Vibes, also a new BYOBottle festival, teamed up with r.Cup to successfully divert 100K+ single-use cups from landfills. 

BYOBottle Partners: O’land fill & wash station, fans BYOBottle at Outside Lands, Plastic Pollution Coalition at Greek Theatre, reusables at Levitate Music & Arts Festival, r.Cup at Fiddler’s Green, reusable cups on Jack Johnson tour, Green Music Australia with Music Victoria Awards, Plastic Free July hosts Plastic Free Tea with BYOBottle partners

Greetings BYOBottle Partners!

We are thrilled to report that momentum to reduce plastic pollution in the music industry is growing! Artists are joining venues, festivals, and fans to rally around BYOBottle and rock reusables to reduce single-use plastic waste. BYOBottle Non-Profit Partners are sharing out valuable resources and plastic-free messaging, and our Business Partners continue to expand innovative solutions for the events industry. We hope you enjoy these BYOBottle updates and highlights!

➤ BYOBottle – Highlights:

• BYOBottle founding artist Jack Johnson is promoting plastic free initiatives throughout his Meet the Moonlight Tour, and shared recent highlights in this North American Impact Report. While in Australia, Jack and fellow BYOBottle Artist Ziggy Alberts gathered with BYOBottle Non-Profit Partners Tangaroa Blue, Plastic Free July and Green Music Australia for a beach clean-up to raise awareness about solutions to plastic pollution. In association with Jack’s show in Sydney, Plastic Free July and Take 3 hosted a “Plastic Free Tea” bringing together music industry efforts with local non-profits, concluding with a backstage tour of Jack’s greening initiatives with Green Music Australia.

• BYOBottle Festivals continue a commitment to turn the tide on plastic pollution. Cali Vibes Festival 2023, together with AEG and Goldenvoice, are piloting the r.Cup reusable cup system for poured drinks, eliminating single-use plastic water bottles, and inviting BYOBottle Non-Profit Partners Algalita, 5 Gyres, Plastic Pollution Coalition, Surfrider Foundation, Upstream and Rob Machado Foundation to engage with festival goers. BottleRock is eliminating all single-use plastics and provides reusable bottles to artists and staff, last year avoiding 180,000 single-use plastic water bottles. Levitate Music & Arts Festival reached new records in 2022 with the elimination of single-use plastic at all bars, and Outside Lands ditched disposable plastic water bottles, encouraging fans to refill for free at water stations. 

• BYOBottle Business Partners continue to promote innovative reuse solutions. r.Cup expanded reusable cup operations to venues and festivals in Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco, eliminating over 2 million single-use cups. Effect Partners implemented a BYOBottle program for the Roger Waters 2022 Tour, providing stainless steel coffee cups and water bottles for the production crew. O’land fill & wash stations have provided over 700,000 refills at events and music festivals, helping to reduce plastic waste.

💧Featured Campaign: Green Music Australia’s Party with the Planet

💧Featured Festival Sustainability: Cali Vibes 2023

💧Featured Resource: Julie’s Bicycle Resource Hub

💧Featured Podcast: Upstream Indisposable Podcast

💧Featured Tour Impact Report: Jack Johnson North America Impact Report

💧Featured Webinars: Plastic Pollution Coalition webinar series

Anyone who’s been to a concert knows the sound: The crunch of hundreds of plastic cups underfoot, which are used once and thrown away, creating countless acres of garbage.

Live Nation Entertainment has made a move to reduce that waste at its venues and festival via a strategic investment in Turn Systems, which operates a leading reusable-cup system that also includes collection bins and mobile washing systems. According to the announcement, a single reusable Turn cup has the potential to displace up to 100 single-use cups and can break even on its environmental impact in as few as three uses. (For more on Turn Systems, see the company’s website.)

As the primary option for beverages at participating Live Nation events, fans can easily use the return-bin system instead of a traditional trash or recycling bin. Similar systems have been successfully deployed at major European festivals for many years.

[Read Full Article]

Plastic whether we know it or not, is everywhere.

It resides in the $4 takeaway latte’s we buy every morning, the cars that we drive to work throughout the week and the cigarettes that we smoke on weekends to say goodbye to all the stress. Unfortunately for Earth the material takes up to 400 years to degrade and with a 379 million tonne increase in plastic production since the 1950’s, the flood gates are bursting open.

Scientists at National Geographic have calculated that a distressing 91% of the 8.3 billion metric tons of existing plastic are NOT being recycled. Plastic not salvaged either ends up as landfill, or if not contained is prone to blow away into rivers and natural water sources where the material is swept out into the ocean. Problems arising from plastic bags, toothpaste canisters and plastic straws are well documented, however the ingestion of microplastics is also a real threat to the natural food chain. Microplastics are 5mm in total size or less and are produced by the break down of floating plastic in waterways being exposed to constant sunlight. The danger here is that smaller marine life consumes these micro substances, then is eaten by wildlife higher up in the food chain – harbouring an endless cycle of consumption. There are plenty of reported cases around the globe where fisherman and even chefs are finding seafood containing microplastics.

So the most important question here is… how do we combat the problem?

“Jack Johnson has launched BYOBottle (Bring Your Own Bottle), an environmental campaign aimed at reducing plastic pollution throughout the music industry by promoting reusable water bottles and water refill stations at events.

Other artists who have signed on to support the initiative include Wilco, Maroon 5, Pink, Bob Weir, Bonnie Raitt, Dave Matthews Band, Dead & Company, Empire of the Sun, Jackson Browne, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, the Lumineers, Steve Earle, Steven Van Zandt, Ben Harper, Keb’ Mo’ and Flume.”