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This is how you can go green at Superbalist is Rocking the Daisies 2016

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(Photo: Rocking the Daisies)
(Photo: Rocking the Daisies)

Cape Town - What started out as a small eco-friendly, "green" festival has over the course of a decade grown into the biggest festival in the country. 

With over 20 000 people attending every year, it’s now more important than ever that Superbalist is Rocking the Daisies’ motto, 'Play Hard, Tread Lightly,' is embraced by all festival-goers, suppliers and fans so these words become real action.

Who better to embrace going green than Daisies’ fan base of eco-conscious millennials, who are as big on the environment as they are music festivals?

Caring goes mainstream!

This year, Daisies wants to engage with everyone involved in the festival to raise their awareness of eco-friendly festival fun, because this is a global effort and it can’t make significant headway from here alone. Everyone needs to get on board and get involved.

Every year, Daisies implements new sustainable strategies that enable it to tread even lighter. The festival has 10 green goals which guide these strategies and the whole production of the festival. 

Rocking the Daisies lives by this and distributes through policies to all traders, contractors, artists, and sponsors to sign off on and adhere to, ensuring they live up to the festival’s status as the most eco-friendly in the southern hemisphere. 

These goals include: an Eco-Procurement Policy, Waste Management Policy, Transportation Policy and a Green Strategy. The green strategy drives initiatives to minimise waste, conserve water, and procure environmentally-friendly products.

Greening initiatives at #SxRTD2016

Because we all live on Earth and not on Mars (just yet) it’s our collective responsibility to make sure we achieve these goals. Daisies has teamed up with eco-experts at Greenpop to create the Green Village; and so many others to curate the best greening initiatives at the festival.

The Green Parade: 
A weaving snake of awesome people who worm through the campsite twice a day encouraging the picking up of litter.

Trashback stations:
Where you can bring trash and exchange it for treasure. There’s also an Organic Trashback station this year where you can bring organic waste (compost) and exchange for treats. How cool?

Green Parking Zone: 
To encourage the sharing of lifts in order to reduce the number of cars coming to the festival, if you have four or more people, you get priority parking right next to the festival gates. We’ve also partnered up with CoPilot – where you can register as a driver (to fill up your car with humans) or register yourself as a passenger, and get a smooth ride to and from the festival!

Bussing the Daisies, Walking the Daisies and Cycling the Daisies: 
The festival has introduced three modes of alternative transport to combat the carbon footprint of getting there: Walking, cycling and bussing the Daisies. Walking the Daisies goes beyond a method of travel to the festival – with organised beach clean ups, community education and engagement, and planting workshops. The Sustainable Brothers and Sisters and Plant the Seed have really spearheaded this experience to make it educational, informative and fun. The cycle spreads awareness and a whole lot of fun as cyclists wind their way on a one-day, 75km mission to the festival. Busses depart from the Cape Town airport and the V & A Waterfront and drop you right at the festival.

The Daisies App: 
The Daisies app combats the need to print out festival guides and information packs – and this will be the fourth year they have distributed absolutely no festival guides. The app incorporates all the festival greening info a festival attendee needs - highlighting the location of water taps and waste stations, as well as what’s going on when and where you can learn more about how to tread lightly at the festival and beyond.

The Green Village: 
This eco-hub, hosted and produced by Greenpop, is the heart of all things green. Larger and more prominent this year, The Green Village and including Hemp Stage, runs almost completely on solar energy. And for the first time ever will have a wind turbine as an additional source of energy. It is the heart of green education at the festival, from TedX talks to Fry’s Family Foods vegan burger bar, yoga classes, and a range of eco-aware activations and experiences throughout the festival.

Trash Police: 
The trash police will be stationed at the entrance of the festival. The mission – to educate punters coming into the gates on waste management and how green they really can go at the event. 

Social initiatives: 
Being green does not just incorporate the care of our environment but also spans across economic and social development. This year we are building on an awesome campaign with Do Good, called the #DaisiesSpringClean. Festival goers are encouraged to pack one item of clothing to donate at the festival. We've also teamed up with SAE, providing hands-on experience for sound engineering students to learn alongside our contractors. And once again the Bridges for Music stage, which raises awareness for their mission. Bridges for Music is a non-profit organisation supporting electronic music development in developing countries.

Waste-ED: 
Waste-ED will be driving the Trashback initiatives and ecobricking at the festival as well as the beach clean-up on the walk. Waste-ED serves to develop and apply sustainable, local environment and community based waste management and education solutions. (The ecobricks collected at Daisies will be used in Waste-ED building projects, including one with the City of Cape Town constructing an Early Childhood Development Centre out of (almost entirely) reclaimed and natural materials.) 

Conscious Camping: 
This is a space where the walkers and cyclists can camp, it’s a space where like-minded people can interact and live together. There will also be a compost toilet here, which we are introducing for the first time at the festival!

Planting: 
We just completed an incredible day of planting and team-building for the Walk guides with the community in Mamre, run by Plant the Seed and Sustainable Brothers and Sisters. 

Energy:
Across the board, the festival aims to integrate alternative energy sources (approximately half of our generators run on biodiesel) and minimise the environmental impact through initiatives like requiring the use of energy efficiency lights, and ensuring the energy used at the festival will be predominantly generated by renewable energy sources, bought through Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) from Darling Wind Farm.  

What can you do?

We know you can play hard, but how lightly can you tread while you play? Daisies can’t do this without your help, so come Play Hard and Tread Lightly.

There are super simple things that you can do - if each person who comes to Superbalist is Rocking the Daisies does a few simple things this year - the environmental impact will be huge!

•  Bring and use a reusable water bottle and use it - fill it from the free taps - the water quality is exceptional.
•  Dispose of your waste appropriately - take a second to look, think and put things in the appropriate bins: Paper, Plastic, Metal, Organic, or ecobrick for non-recyclable materials.
•  Bring less & leave less - don’t bring excess rubbish or things you don’t really need, clean up your camping area during and after the festival and leave less trace by not leaving your rubbish, tents, etc. behind.
•  Carpool - reduce your carbon footprint (and your own transport cost!) of getting to the festival and travel with a full car of friends.

These aspects are not separate from the rest of the festival experience, it can just be part of day-to-day life at the festival and really takes minimal effort on everyone’s part to make a huge difference.

You feel our vibe? Great – Let’s Rock the Daisies!

For more information on how you can be part of the change go to www.rockingthedaisies.com.

If you haven’t yet sorted out your accommodation requirements, click here.

And of course the latest threads and all things awesome can be found at Superbalist.

Ticket transfers:
Ticket transfers opened on 1 June and will close 12 hours before the festival gates open. All tickets can be transferred online and will cost R50.   

Event info:

#SxRTD2016
Date: 6-9 October 2016
Place: Cloof Wine Estate

*Channel24 is a proud media partner of Superbalist is Rocking the Daisies 2016.

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