{"id":428147,"date":"2026-08-09T15:02:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T15:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428147\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T15:02:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T15:02:25","slug":"meet-the-attendees-keeping-outside-lands-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428147\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the attendees keeping Outside Lands green"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyond the headliners, performers, food, and traffic that make Outside Lands\u200b a premier weekend series, it also comes with a lot of trash \u2013 and a system for dealing with it. Each piece is sorted twice.<\/p>\n

The first time with volunteers instructing attendees, and the second time to correct any errors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically, we have really been on the front of sustainability,\u201d said Annie Farman, the director of sustainability for Outside Lands. \u201cWe\u2019re lucky to be in the city of San Francisco. People are pretty aware and they\u2019re very conscious about our footprint on this planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WomanAnnie Farman, the director of sustainability at Outside Lands pictured on August 8, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

Farman said Outside Lands has the highest waste diversion rate of any large-scale festival in the United States \u2013 some at 89 percent of it ends up out of landfills, thanks to multiple initiatives and efforts from volunteers and staff.<\/p>\n

As it has done in previous years, Outside Lands partnered with two waste management organizations to assist with the abundance of trash a three-day festival produces.<\/p>\n

Clean Vibes, an on-site waste management organization for festivals and events has over 500 volunteer \u201ctrash talkers\u201d who bus tables and inform attendees how to properly sort their trash. Volunteers are also ground sweepers clean up crews.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these folks, I think, are less interested in the music and just really excited about the experience of being a part of the event in this capacity, helping with the sustainability,\u201d said Anna Borofsky, the co-owner of Clean Vibes. While that\u2019s a sentiment that could not be confirmed, there were an awful lot of volunteers walking the talk.<\/p>\n

\"AAnna Borofsky, owner and manager of Clean Vibes, running the show for the team behind the scenes sorting trash, recycling, and compost at day two of Outside Lands on August 8, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get to keep mother earth safe, and also watch all these amazing artists,\u201d said volunteer Nathanael Beceriril Diaz, who, like other volunteers, got a free ticket all three days in exchange for 12 hours of volunteering.<\/p>\n

He and others get ignored at times, he said, and trash is dumped into the wrong bag. \u201cBut then it\u2019s on us to correct their mistakes and hope someone will care more the next time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After trash is mitigated by Clean Vibes volunteers, each piece makes its way to the next group \u2014 the workers at Green Mary, an eco-friendly organization that specializes in waste management, eco-stations, dumpsters, and transportation.<\/p>\n

\"TwoVolunteers with Clean Vibes being in bags of compost, recyclables, and trash from festival grounds at day two of Outside Lands on August 8, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

The 16 Green Mary workers transport already sorted trash bags from the festival to an area they call \u201cMiddle Earth,\u201d a secluded area in Golden Gate Park.<\/p>\n

There, it is sorted again. Compost, wood, metals, textiles, and asphalt are just a few of the things they come across. Last year, Outside Lands kept 330,000 pounds of these materials out of landfills, according to Farman.<\/p>\n

\"TwoTwo volunteers sorting trash and recycling behind the scenes at day two of Outside Lands on August 8, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

After the trash is sorted a second time and loaded into large shipping containers, the latter return to the Clean Vibes team. From there, the containers are hauled to their final destinations, whether it be a donation center for corks\u200b\u200b to be recycled to soles or a plastic film repurposing center.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving large gatherings like this, it\u2019s both important that we make them as sustainable as possible, but also make it an opportunity to educate people,\u201d Borofsky said. \u201cIf we can show them that in Golden Gate Park, in a sea of 75,000 people, we can divert almost all the waste \u2014 there\u2019s no reason that they can\u2019t take that and do that at home as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beyond the headliners, performers, food, and traffic that make Outside Lands\u200b a premier weekend series, it also comes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[584,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-428147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-events","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}