Borderland Sustainability

Borderland Festival is fully dedicated to our message of "Leave No Trace."

The festival works with a full service Greening and Waste Diversion Team to manage and mitigate all festival-produced waste. The programs include a "green team" of staff and over 100 Green Team volunteers who sweep the festival site throughout the weekend, picking up trash and sorting through the dumpsters to properly separate recycling, landfill and composting.

Borderland partners with a local composting facility, Farmer Pirates, to deliver the collected compost. After the 2024 festival, we delivered 1,871.61lbs of compost!

Borderland also invests in Water Refill Stations to provide free water to fans all weekend, encouraging them to bring a reusable water bottle, eliminating single use plastic. Over (3) days we saved 43,776 (17oz) plastic water bottles at the water refill stations during the 2024 festival. 

Borderland also partnered with a local NPO, The Rural Outreach Center and donated the money from returned recyclables.

Borderland Festival has been awarded the Environmental Stewardship award from the State of New York and Erie County.

“We believe that when we create events and experiences, it is our responsibility to have the lowest possible impact and environmental footprint. It is also our responsibility to educate and imprint a greater change by shifting the mindset of business owners and their staff to carry these practices into their daily lives.” 

–Team Borderland