{"id":11599,"date":"2025-08-20T12:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T12:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11599\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T12:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T12:56:10","slug":"wexford-festival-hits-the-right-note-on-sustainability-we-wanted-to-be-part-of-the-solution-not-the-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11599\/","title":{"rendered":"Wexford festival hits the right note on sustainability \u2013 \u2018We wanted to be part of the solution, not the pollution\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Live at the Breakwater at Ferrybank in Wexford.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d4e12786-a8b1-4822-8678-5789789c478a.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Live at the Breakwater at Ferrybank in Wexford.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Having seen acts like Amble, The Waterboys, Gavin James, Moncrieffe, Jax Jones and The Whistlin Donkeys take to the stage under the big top at the far side of Wexford Bridge, Live at the Breakwater is once again being hailed a success as talks continue over it becoming an annual event in a post-Fleadh Wexford.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">While the festival welcomed thousands of concert-goers and generated a notable financial footprint for the town, organisers Lantern Events are particularly proud of their environmental efforts, stating that they eliminated 85,600 units of single use plastics from the environment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">In 2024, Lantern embarked on an ambitious plan to reduce plastic pollution and their \u201cleave no trace\u201d initiatives continued into 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">With plastic cups ubiquitous at Fleadh Cheoil na h\u00c9ireann, Live at the Breakwater was the only venue to introduce a cup deposit return scheme to reduce plastic waste, avoiding the use of 47,500 single-use plastic drinking cups. The venue also used paper straws, avoiding the use of 22,500 single-use plastic straws. Infinitely recyclable aluminium water bottles were sourced and avoided the use of 10,600 plastic water bottles, while 5,000 moulded, biodegradable cup holders were also used at the festival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">At Live at the Breakwater 2024 and 2025 combined, 155,600 single-use plastics were eliminated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cWe are very aware that many of our events take place in beautiful settings, no more so than Live at the Breakwater on the banks of the Slaney,\u201d Brian Byrne of Lantern explains. \u201cWe are conscious of our responsibility to maintain these settings and the environment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">&#8220;Every bit of plastic ever made, still exists somewhere. We want to make sure that the \u2018somewhere\u2019 is not landfill or our oceans or rivers. Our cups can be used again and again at Live at the Breakwater, the Spiegeltent Festival and all of our festivals and events.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">&#8220;It was a new concept for our audience in 2024 as \u2018borrowing\u2019 a cup instead of disposing of a plastic cup was new. But the feedback has been great. We want to be part of the solution, not the pollution. People appreciate that and support it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Mr Byrne also thanked Wexford County Council and the National Parks and Wildlife Service for their assistance in securing the site for Live at the Breakwater.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cIt\u2019s a great location and very picturesque with the river, the bridge and the Raven and Curracloe in the background,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will continue to innovate to support our environment and to champion alternative consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Live at the Breakwater at Ferrybank in Wexford. Having seen acts like Amble, The Waterboys, Gavin James, Moncrieffe,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[18,440,19,17,7583,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-11599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-padraig-byrne","13":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}