Hospitality students help make one of the world's most recognized music festivals more sustainable

The sounds of Tiesto, David Guetta and AfroJack filled the air of Bayfront Park in downtown Miami during the Ultra Music Festival. Electronic dance music took center stage, but a group of FIU hospitality students and their professor worked behind the scenes to make this year's festival more eco-friendly.

Eight FIU students joined the UMF Sustainability Team, recruited by festival planners to help them with their mission to keep Bayfront Park and Biscayne Bay clean, reducing the amount of waste produced at the festival from going into landfills, and diverting usable foods to good use at a local homeless shelter.

To support the mission, the students were assigned to rotations: working in the "Eco Village" with sustainability non-profits who showed attendees how to lower their carbon footprints; initiating audits to ensure food vendors were using biodegradable utensils and plates; observing festivalgoers to make sure they did not do anything to harm the environment; and conducting the food rescue at the end of each event.

Food rescue is a long-time effort started by John Buschman, Chaplin School professor and co-director of the new, online Bachelor of Arts in Global Sustainable Tourism program. For hospitality and tourism management major Samantha Wagner, it was an eye-opening experience.

"The food rescue was awesome to see how many vendors were on board in making a difference and seeing how much food was collected," said Wagner.

Over the three days of the festival, the team rescued about 3,500 pounds of food and transported it to the Miami Rescue Mission, a local homeless shelter.

“That much recovered food should generate about 2,700 meals for the men and women in the Mission’s regeneration program, as well as for their homeless guests coming in off the street for a hot, nourishing meal,” Buschman explained.

In the Eco Village, students helped run the festival's interactive booths and activations. One of the most interesting was Climate Futures 1Planet App, which not only measures an individual's carbon footprint but then shares what that person has to do in order to make up for their carbon footprint. For example, according to the app, someone who flew from New York City to Miami to attend the festival burned 457 pounds of carbon dioxide or the equivalent of five trees.

"There are so many things you don't even think about," Wagner said. "It was great to do good and have fun."