LoS recycles waste at festival

Lake of Stars (LoS) Arts Festival has collected waste at the venue, Chintheche Inn in Nkhata Bay, to be recycled into usable products such as manure and artworks.

The international event took place at the venue along the shores of Lake Malawi for three days from last Friday.

The organisers set up waste bins in all strategic positions at the venue to collect waste in form of tins, glass and plastic material, paper and organic waste.

They also opted for smart toilets and ecological sanitation (ecosan) pit latrines to facilitate collection of the waste.

LoS director Will Jameson said this year’s festival had an eco-sanitation theme where they partnered with solar companies such as Sunny Money and Team Planet to promote solar products and messages on reuse of waste materials.

“Even the toilets we had are eco-toilets with sawdust thrown in so that it [waste matter] can be turned into manure and be processed in eco-environmentally friendly way,” he said.

Jameson said organic waste will be turned into manure whereas bottles, tins, glass, plastic and paper will be turned into arts or crafts which will be donated to the community around Chintheche.

He said as part of LoS corporate social responsibility, a partnership has also been established with Root to Fruit, a tree-planting enterprise located at Chintheche Inn, to reduce the festival’s carbon footprint.

Jameson said with global temperatures rising, Root to Fruit offers an easy and effective way to care for the climate and Malawian communities by planting trees.

The trees are expected to off-set pollution as well as provide local communities with food, medicine, building materials and improved soil quality.