Major initiative on eliminating disposable items at this year’s Gothenburg Culture Festival
Food plays a significant role at the Gothenburg Culture Festival, and this year, waste is drastically reduced by eliminating disposable items. For the first time, the Streetfood Festival will largely go disposable-free. Meals will be served on plates, in glasses, and with utensils that are washed and reused onsite. This change is expected to prevent the use of around 100,000 disposable items—a significant environmental and climate-saving effort!
This year, the Gothenburg Culture Festival is pioneering a large-scale pilot project for disposable-free events. The aim of the project “Engångsfritt för klimatet” (“Disposable-free for the Climate”) is to assess its feasibility on a large scale and inspire other events.
“Gothenburg Culture Festival aims to set an example for other events. By eliminating disposable items, we hope to offer visitors a more enjoyable and sustainable dining experience in a cleaner festival area,” says Jane Johnzon, concept developer at the Gothenburg Culture Festival.
For the third consecutive year, Sweden’s largest Streetfood festival is part of the Gothenburg Culture Festival. Visitors to the food trucks and bars at Kungstorget and Basargatan will, for the first time, enjoy their food and drinks on reusable plates, utensils, and glasses. Throughout the event, manned return stations will be available for all reusable products, deposit cans, food waste, and other combustibles. The entire area is part of the disposable-free initiative, with reusable items washed onsite, like a regular restaurant.
“Our biggest challenge in this project is ensuring visitors return reusable items to designated places. The message must be crystal clear—it should be easy to do the right thing,” says Linn Färjhage, Project Manager for the initiative “Engångsfritt för klimatet”.
The Gothenburg Culture Festival continually strives for sustainability, aiming to reduce waste and the event’s carbon footprint by offering a reusable system. It’s estimated that at least 100,000 reusable units will be used during the festival’s four days, with our goal being to create a seamless and positive experience for our visitors—to inspire them to make more sustainable choices.
The significant reduction in disposable items by the Gothenburg Culture Festival and the Streetfood Festival is part of the project Music Industry Resilience Acceleration Programme (MI-RAP), supported by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Program and the European Union. This effort is conducted in partnership with supplier Light My Fire BORROW.
