East Aurora Advertiser

Sustainability and Environment Take Center Stage at Borderland



The Borderland Music + Arts Festival, coming into only its second year and has quickly grown its “green” reputation, embracing sustainability and sound environmental practices while reducing the carbon footprint throughout the event. 

Last year, Borderland’s debut included Waste-Free Earth facilitating programs with extensive recycling and composting of garbage, eliminating single-use food and beverage containers anywhere on premises and providing free water bottle filling stations.

This year, there is a renewed and increased emphasis on sustainability with a lineup of environmental groups taking part in the festivities. This year, to the left of the main stage, Eco-Lands, an immersive, hands-on community of green non-profits, will be home to interactive booths from Borderland partners Aurorans for Climate and Energy Sense (ACES), Buffalo Niagara Riverkeepers, Waste-Free Earth, WNY Sustainable Business Roundtable, Reverb.org, the Citizen Climate Lobby, Plastic Pollution Coalition, and Blue Rock Solar. 

Marina McCoy, center, of Waste Free Earth directs Green Team volunteers Rita Buckley and Claudia Newton at last year’s festival.

Here’s a preview of what you can expect in Eco-Lands:

-ACES, our hometown environmental group that has become such a voice for the environment will have a fun and educational booth, suitable for all ages. They’re the folks who recently persuaded the Kiwanis Club of East Aurora to abandon foam containers for their chicken barbecue in favor of biodegradable boxes. And they’re promoting a sustainability law that will ban polystyrene containers at local businesses. At their display they’ll ask you to help them build a mandala out of plastic bottles caps and they’ll engage the public in a discussion about ways to live a greener life.

-Buffalo Niagara Waterkeepers is one of the beneficiaries of the festival – a portion of ticket sales are going to local nonprofits – as well as a beneficiary of the Nalgene/Borderland water bottle sales. Their booth will be fully staffed and offer a raffle for a rain barrel, perfect for conserving rainwater. The winning barrel will also contain a membership to the Ale Trail. The waterkeeper organization, now 30 years old, has taken the lead throughout Western New York in reestablishing and maintaining the health of the waterways in the Niagara Watershed, from the small creeks like Hunters Creek to the Niagara River and the lakes of Erie and Ontario through programs like Buffalo Blue Way, Living Shorelines and the Headwaters Initiative. Learn about their water academies for all ages, water safety and all of the 60 projects Waterkeepers undertakes each year.

According to East Auroran Jen Fee, the marketing director for the Buffalo Niagara Waterkeepers, “This is one festival we can really get behind—there’s nothing like it as far as a commitment to sustainability is concerned. We look forward to helping everyone understand how we can pull together to protect the abundance of fresh water we enjoy in the region.”

-Waste-Free Earth out of Burlington, VT, will once again oversee all aspects of waste collection, recycling, composting as they did last year. The inimitable Marina McCoy, founder and rising spirit behind Waste Free Earth, reported that last year over 80 percent of trash was diverted from landfills and instead went to recycling programs or to Farmer Pirates in Buffalo, a commercial composting facility. 

Toward that end, McCoy and her assistant will again form a Green Team, volunteers who will receive a festival ticket in return for working one six-hour shift collecting and sorting trash. McCoy will also help food and beverage vendors comply with the ban on single use cups, plates, utensils, etc. by steering them toward compliant suppliers.

-Western New York Sustainability Roundtable is made up of over 50 local businesses whose mission is “to create an environmentally and economically resilient Buffalo-Niagara that prioritizes the well-being of present and future generations.”

The Roundtable helps its 50-plus member organizations develop and implement sustainable goals while maintaining profitability.

-Reverb.org partners with musicians and their management, festivals and venues, acting as a liaison between them with the goal of making concert events greener. Reverb is coordinating a special Borderland water bottle promotion with Rochester-based Nalgene and providing RocknRefill free water stations throughout the venue. They’ve worked with Dave Matthews, Dead & Company, et al., providing farm-to-stage and backstage greening services. Look for prizes and giveaways as well as information at their booth in Eco-Land. 

-The Plastic Pollution Coalition, from Berkeley, CA, is “a growing global alliance of individuals, organizations, businesses and policymakers working toward a world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impacts on humans, animals, waterways, oceans and the environment.” 

-The Citizens Climate Lobby “exists to create the political will for climate solutions by enabling individual breakthroughs in the exercise of personal and political power” according to their mission statement. They build non-partisan relationships with elected officials across the country, hoping to bring the message of sustainability to legislatures.

-Blue Rock Solar is a major sponsor of Borderland, helping to fund the Green Team. They are a solar products vendor as well as an installation contractor with a specialty in solar communities. The solar community concept allows individuals to subscribe to solar projects and receive the benefits without installing solar panels on their houses.

On Sunday of the festival, Sept. 22, festival organizer and East Aurora native Jennifer Brazill will host a panel discussion on the Homespun Stage with representatives of these green partners answering questions. Topics will include the individual’s path to a greener lifestyle, the future of recycling and composting, the importance of clean waters all along the watershed, and green community action options.

As a native East Auroran, Brazill carries sustainability close to her heart. 

“If I’m going to gather this many people together in such a large space,” she said, “it’s my responsibility to be super conscious about the environmental impact, our waste impact, the education around what we’re doing, making people more aware of what they can actually do, and what they can take away from this. Our big thing is lifestyle changes, making the green lifestyle something we can all do.”

Visit borderlandfestival.com for more details. 

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