They Love Trash – Young rebels take on the unpleasant byproducts of festival culture.

JOSHUA TREE, Calif. — Soph Nielsen was sewing garbage onto her black T-shirt (a chicken wing, a crushed Bud Light can, a plastic fork) and struggling to attach a snarl of crusty pad thai.

“This is to get people to see the trash,” she said, her fingers slick with grease. “We don’t want to be the invisible janitors.” With her distinctive appliqués, that was unlikely.

It was the last day of the Joshua Tree Music Festival, a family-friendly event of didgeridoo sound baths, yoga, crafts, electronica and other familiar fare held at a dusty desert campground for three days in October. Ms. Nielsen, a 25-year-old artist whose medium is trash, was one of 20-odd Trash Pirates working the event.

The Pirates are a loose collective of waste management specialists, to borrow a phrase from Tony Soprano, who make sure events are as sustainable as possible through recycling and composting. They also educate attendees about how to do both properly.

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Thanks Penelope, read the entire article here https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/style/trash-pirates-festivals.html