Heritage cities face a practical contradiction. The festivals that express their culture also generate the waste that threatens the places they celebrate. Cusco’s June festivities included 35 collection points that helped recover nearly four tonnes of recyclable material, UNESCO reported on 7 September. It is a small number in the scale of a city’s waste, and a useful example of how the logistics of celebration can be changed.
What the campaign did
The material was transferred to recognised recycling associations as part of the Cusco Celebra Limpio campaign. Environmental promoters guided around 250 vendors, and some food sellers replaced disposable packaging with porcelain tableware and plant-fibre baskets. The work formed part of the UNESCO-led Ayllu Verde project, supported by KOICA and local partners.
Why vendors are the key
Festival waste is largely produced by food and drink stalls, which is why working with vendors matters more than cleaning up afterwards. Changing what a stall uses requires more than a request: it involves cost, logistics and habit. Reusable tableware has to be collected, washed and returned, which is a system, not a product. The campaign’s focus on vendors reflects an understanding that waste is generated upstream of the bin.
The recycling associations
Transferring material to recognised recycling associations does two things at once: it keeps recyclables out of landfill and it supports the workers who collect and process them. Informal recyclers are often invisible in waste policy, despite doing much of the work. Recognising and contracting with their associations is a practical way to formalise the sector and improve conditions.
The reported recovery is a concrete result, but it does not measure every environmental effect of the festivals. Waste volume, water use and transport all matter, and a single recycling figure captures only one dimension. Whether the practices continue across later events will matter more than the total from one year, because the point is to change routine behaviour rather than to stage a demonstration.
The heritage connection
Cusco’s historic centre is a World Heritage site, and the pressure of tourism and festivals on its fabric and infrastructure is a long-standing concern. Waste management is one part of managing that pressure, alongside traffic, water and the conservation of buildings. Framing cleanliness as part of heritage protection is a way of connecting everyday behaviour to the care of a place.
Replicability
Campaigns of this kind are attractive because they are concrete and measurable, which makes them easier to fund and to report than abstract appeals. Their limitation is that they depend on organisation and enforcement, which vary from place to place. The useful question for other cities is not whether they can copy the campaign, but whether they have the local partners and authority to run something similar.
Large festivals generate waste in concentrated bursts, which makes them both a problem and an opportunity. The problem is volume and the strain on collection services; the opportunity is that behaviour can be changed at a defined moment, with vendors and visitors in one place. Cities that manage festival waste well often do so through a combination of infrastructure, rules and incentives, rather than relying on the goodwill of participants alone.
How other cities handle it
Approaches vary. Some cities require event organisers to submit waste plans and provide collection infrastructure; others impose deposits or fees that fund cleanup; others rely on volunteer campaigns. Reusable cups and containers have been introduced at festivals in several countries, with mixed results depending on the washing and return logistics. The common lesson is that reusable systems need a supply chain, not just a policy.
What makes campaigns last
One-off campaigns often produce a good result and no lasting change. Durability depends on whether the practice becomes routine: whether vendors keep using reusable items because the system supports it, whether collection is reliable, and whether the rules are enforced. The measure of success is not the tonnage from a single festival but whether the next one generates less waste with less effort. That is a slower and less reportable outcome, and the more meaningful one.
Festival waste is generated by visitors as well as vendors, and changing visitor behaviour is harder than changing a stall’s packaging. Deposit schemes, clear bin labelling and visible messaging help; moral appeals help less. Where returnable cups require a deposit, return rates are typically high because the incentive is immediate. The design of the system, rather than the virtue of the participant, determines the outcome, which is a lesson that applies well beyond festivals.
The most useful way to read a result like this is as a signal of intent. A city that organises recycling at its festivals is signalling that heritage and daily life are connected, and that the connection is worth managing. Whether that signal becomes routine practice is the real question, and it will be answered at the next festival rather than in the report.
This report draws on UNESCO.
Image: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons.