[GRRN] Woodstock

Russell_Roe@ci.sf.ca.us
Mon, 9 Aug 1999 08:35:36 -0700

Hi everyone.

For those of you who have been discussing the Woodstock garbage
problems, I thought you might be interested in reading comments from
friends of mine who were there.


"Hi Russell,

Good to hear from you. Joe and I returned home yesterday. We camped
at Woodstock until the burning inferno incident. We arrived at the
site on Thursday afternoon and by Friday there was garbage all over
the grounds. Many plastic water bottles, 12" pizza boxes, rotting
food, cans, bottles.... There were 50 gallon drums set up for trash
but they were soon filled and not disposed of in a timely manner.
Garbarge was everywhere. We will have to show you the pictures. There
was not any recycling containers. At the time of the fires, you could
smell burning plastics and other toxins. It was very sad. People
went even further and left tents, plastic spikes, and other campsite
materials that they were too lazy to carry back to their car. Parking
was at least 1 mile from the camp site and you had to carry everything
in. I can tell you much more later." Andrea




Russ,
"You would think that the organizers of Woodstock would be keen on
recycling and waste management. I did not see ANY recycling bins
anywhere. The garbage was not collected and seemed to pile up for 3
days. There was an enormous amount of garbage - from what I have read
in the Rome paper they are still cleaning it up and they predict it
will take a month or two to completely clean it up. I don't have time
to go into details now because I am at work but the garbage really
contributed to the problems they encountered there. You would not
believe the site - will talk to you about it later... have to run."

Joe


I also spoke with them yesterday and they said that there were
incredible numbers of PET bottles and that some of the bands were
encouraging fans to throw them in the air. It seems to me that if the
organizers of the event had thought about it for 5 minutes, they could
have used some of these same bands as powerful allies in getting
people to recycle the bottles (had recycling bins been provided).

Russell Roe