Rocking the Daisies returns to the town of Darling in the Western Cape next weekend (28 to 30 September), and the festival organisers are reducing the event's environmental impact in a number of ways. One is to use hemp fabric for official festival clothing. The benefits of hemp, according to the festival website:
Hemp offers so many solutions to the challenges our continent faces on a daily and longer-term basis. Emerging farmers can grow hemp without having to buy the pesticides, chemical fertiliser and herbicides and use much less water than most other conventional crops require. At harvest time they can use the entire plant with zero waste, the fibre being the primary product, the essential fatty acid and protein rich seeds for nutrition/fuel and the byproduct of the stalk for housing. The green leaves are left in the field and ploughed back into the soil, replacing valuable nitrogen and leaving the soil fertile for the next rotational crop to be planted.
They are also collecting used cooking oil from restaurants at the festival, converting it to biodiesel, and using that to power a generator for the restaurants. How cool is that? Other strategies are outlined on the festival website.
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