Sustainability and the Duhks
published on August 20th, 2008 by Bonnie MahlIt’s starts with a small step. That’s the philosophy The Duhks have adopted in making their tours more sustainable. During the 35th Telluride Bluegrass Festival, the Duhks lead a workshop at Elks Park on the topic of Music and Sustainability. The clear blue sky provided the perfect environment for Festivarians to gather and listen to the Duhks play and talk about what they are doing to Green their Tour.
In between playing songs and getting the audience to dance, the Duhks answered questions from the audience and talked about how the whole process of greening their tour got started. Fiddle Player, Tania Elizabeth, talked about how when she started noticing the amount of trash they throw away while on tour, she wanted to do something. So, the first step of greening the tour was to save all their recyclables until they came to a recycling bin to get rid of them. After seeing how hard it can be to save recyclables in a limited space like a Van, the idea for reusable water bottles came into fruition.
Other things they are doing to green their tour include- buying local and organic food, and stating this request on their Ryder New this summer is their use of biodiesel in their Tour Van. When asked if they make there own biodiesel Banjo Player, Leonard Podola, explained that they don’t make their own biodiesel, instead they plan their trip out according to where they can fuel up with biodiesel. To find out where they could fuel up they used a map from www.biodiesel.org that shows where biodiesel pump stations can be found.
When asked about festivals they’ve played and how green they have been, Tania responded with “I think this is (Telluride Bluegrass Festival) is one of the greenest festivals out there.†We here at Planet Bluegrass appreciated the compliment and want to just reiterate how for us too, sustainability started with a small step.
To see more about how they are greening their tour be sure and check out the You Tube Video Tania made-