A day within the lifetime of a bottle collector

Intro: Roskilde Pageant is extra than ‘just a music festival’ – they say

There’s an ongoing joke in Denmark: as soon as a 12 months, ‘Roskilde Festival’ turns into the fourth largest metropolis within the nation. What began as a small scholar gathering within the Nineteen Seventies, the music celebration—held not removed from Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen—has grown into one of many largest non permanent cities on the earth, with 130,000 tickets bought final 12 months.

The pageant is broadly regarded as a nationwide cultural staple, a logo of friendship, liberation, and freedom, a part of the coming-of-age of many younger Danes. For occasion, within the phrases of Hanna (fictional title), a younger college scholar at Copenhagen Enterprise College, who writes in her examination paper:

“[…] it is so much more than just a music festival. It is a place where you go to bed in a freezing cold tent, only to wake up gasping for air in a sauna […] It is a place where you promised yourself you’d save money and only eat mackerel (ed. Danish herring, a popular canned meal) in tomato sauce but somehow find yourself chasing the food trucks as soon asthe festival site opens. It is a place to return to year after year, and where you can be who you really are or become someone new […] because Roskilde Festival is a free space.”

How might one not really feel drawn to such a romantic narrative? Roskilde Pageant appears to really feel like the place the place boundaries dissolve and the potential for self-discovery thrives. Maybe, for some, the most genuine model of themselves is ready in a tent at the campsite.

When contemplating the narrative surrounding the pageant, it feels like a lot extra than a celebration. One instance is the pageant’s most well-known tagline: to be the beholder of the ‘Orange feeling’—a reference to the iconic ‘Orange Stage,’ which has outlined the occasion’s skyline since its starting many years in the past.

And what is Roskilde’s well-known ‘Orange feeling’? In a 2016 after-movie, many attendees have been requested about it. One lady factors out its universality: “[…] everyone has heard of the Orange feeling.” One other man articulates it as “once you get to this side of the fence, there is no rule, you can do whatever you want.” It appears that Roskilde Pageant embodies a mixture of love, openness, enjoyable, and carefree vitality within the air—a secret recipe that makes it so life-affirming.

Roskilde Pageant presents it as a form of Arcadia model 2.0, formed by up to date priorities and progressive beliefs. True to the essence of utopian visions, this “new pastoralutopia” provides a house to give attention to life’s pleasures: forming human connections, dreaming with music, and experiencing a boundary-free setting. On the identical time, the pageant integrates easy-access activism, branding itself as “a movement” whereas working with the authorized standing of a non-profit group.

Numerous media retailers have described the pageant as being at the forefront of the seemingly good intersection of artwork, innovation, and folks: “[Roskilde Festival] is an experimental space for art, sustainability, cultural projects, new ways of creating community and addressing societal issues. A free space where young people explore new perspectives basedon art and creativity. And a real-time innovation lab for testing out new products and ideas.” (creativedenmark.com, hyperlink)

What many do not notice is that whereas the locals are partying, a whole bunch work within the shadows—enjoying a essential function in protecting the pageant from imploding below the load of trash. Every 12 months, a rising quantity of people from marginalized communities, primarily from Romania and West Africa, journey north to acquire empty beer bottles, cups, and cans discardedby hundreds of festival-goers, exchanging them for money via the Danish refund system. Roskilde Pageant acknowledges that extra than 300 refund collectors from about 15 international locations go to the pageant yearly.

Bottle collectors could be discovered in most international locations that have carried out a deposit system for bottles and aluminum cans. Whereas this apply serves as one of many many “side hustles” for people dwelling beneath the poverty line all through the 12 months, it is throughout the “festival season” that the dimensions blows out of proportion. Within the case of Denmark, for occasion, complete households journey north particularly to make a dwelling from the empty beer cans thrown round by the Danes.

Nonetheless, this job is removed from being “easy money.” It requires a bodily and psychological pressure past the particular person capabilities: the effort is 24/7, and after being in fixed motion for per week straight with little to no sleep, collectors rapidly develop into exhausted and sick. Dealing with fierce competitors amongst an rising quantity of individuals becoming a member of the pageant for refund assortment functions each 12 months, the collectors work in harsh circumstances with out an official acknowledgment by the pageant’s administration.

Bottle collectors function in a grey space of laws. Many pageant goers mistakenly consider the refund collectors are employed as cleaners by the pageant, however this is not the case. They’re all paying for a daily, full pageant ticket.

How does this bottle assortment course of match into Roskilde Pageant’s ‘Orange feeling’? How do the collectors stay the pageant expertise? And how does it relate to what the pageant guarantees and promotes? To discover out, I spent the complete week at final summer season’s pageant. Between live shows and events, I spent my time volunteering within the “Refund stations”—designated spots the place empty containers could be exchanged for cash—and studying concerning the collectors’ every day lives.

First encounters with the ‘Orange Feeling’: the Crowd, the Trash, Lars, Marlene, Joe

The pageant’s opening day, June thirtieth, had arrived, and it was time for me to board the regional prepare from Copenhagen to Roskilde. Becoming a member of me have been a whole bunch of excited pageant goers.

The pageant is held south of the city of Roskilde, round 5 km away from the middle and 35 km from Copenhagen. Throughout the commute to the campsite, the ambiance already feels electrical—and barely surreal. A important a part of this feeling comes from the comical quantity of baggage everybody appears to carry.

As a reader, you would think about that packing a mountain climbing backpack or so would be sufficient in order to get pleasure from a music pageant? Properly, you will have to assume once more! In Roskilde, Denmark, I see a whole bunch of individuals, many trying like 16-year-olds, hauling ultra-packed dollies and IKEA luggage. Audio system are pushed with purchasing trolleys, whereas dozens of Tuborg 18-packs and numerous provides are precariously stacked and creatively secured with gaffer tape, usually showing to exceed a individual’s entire physique weight (later, at the campsite, I would witness even funnier objects, like somebody deciding to convey an complete lounge sofa to the get together—sure, an precise sofa!).

On my method to the pageant, I really feel a stark distinction. There is this quiet Danish city, Roskilde, usually described by folks in Copenhagen as a boring place the place nothing ever occurs. Then, all of a sudden, a brand new group emerges: pageant goers with baggage double their physique weight, and every thing mummified in gaffer tape (everybody appears to have adopted the identical taping options , like an unstated rule) to hold it collectively. A Scandinavian “Orderly Chaos”—everybody adopting the identical sample of conduct in embracing disruption, but being remarkably inventive in discovering individualized options.

On the pageant, already on the primary day, the fixed noise is hanging, with little distinction between day and evening. Apart from the music phases, most of the events will occur on the campsite, the place teams of individuals arrange themselves in camps and blast audio system from there. The a number of music sources overlap and morph into one thing indistinguishable.

However, as a volunteer, I’m lucky to have been given entry to a reserved tenting space that is way quieter than the relaxation. Every of my volunteer shifts will final eight hours, protecting each daytime and nighttime on 4 separate days of the pageant week, intertwining with my“regular” pageant expertise. Surprisingly, having to set the alarm and having to be someplace at a specific hour will combine easily, in any other case, in a pageant, most days may rapidly really feel like mixing. I guess that shedding monitor of time is one other element of the “liberation” expertise; in my case, I can really feel the time passing and really feel like I stay extra grounded.

Being a serious pageant, Roskilde Pageant’s calendar is packed. Apart from the most important artists who carry out right here each 12 months, the pageant provides a wealthy program that includes smaller artists, plus a couple of phases that host talks and workshops.

Quick-forwarding a few hours, a live performance is in full swing. I’m standing at the again, the place small teams of individuals are sitting on the bottom, and there are heaps of individuals round me consuming and speaking. A lady and a boy seem to be having an argument, targeted solely on every different. They don’t discover the younger lady choosing up their used beer cups from the bottom.

Throughout live shows, innovation panels, and a beer-soaked routine that blurs the boundaries between days, bottle collectors emerge as semi-invisible figures. They navigate the crowds with agility, amassing each bottle they can discover. They appear critical and strategic of their work: realizing that crashed or damaged objects have little to no worth, they attempt to blow air again into the bottle or reshape crooked cans earlier than including them to their rising trash luggage.

It is Day 1, and I am already struck by the sheer quantity of trash and dust in every single place. A part of the Orange Feeling appears to contain a quasi-hedonistic strategy to dwelling, the place coping with trash turns into one thing too uninteresting to trouble with: the empty beer can is merely left on the bottom, so we can all transfer on.

This feeling is confirmed moments later: subsequent to the stage, I meet Lars, a twenty-something-year-old who has been attending the pageant for a number of years. When I inform him that I’m making an attempt to perceive extra about the function of the bottle collectors at the pageant, it leaves an impression. He says that no one among his buddies—nobody—thinks about it, although he does. He acknowledges it as an difficulty however additionally believes that nobody actually thinks of it as being one. Whereas the refund system was created to encourage shoppers to be aware of their trash, amongst a number of the younger Danes, there appears to be a sense that choosing up bottles—eventheir personal—and exchanging them is type of shameful. Mockingly, throwing it away turns into a standing image. It’s an unstated sign: I don’t want the cash.

Someday later, I converse with Marlene. Marlene is from Roskilde and is in her 50s. Roskilde Pageant isn’t only for youthful folks; it additionally attracts a important quantity of “veterans” who return 12 months after 12 months.

Certainly, Marlene has been attending the pageant since the Eighties. When I convey up the matter of bottle assortment, she reminisces about how, as a little lady, she would enter the pageant grounds and acquire beer cans to trade. Again then, amassing bottles was one thing youngsters did to earn further pocket cash—a far cry from the state of affairs immediately. Marlene acknowledges that it’s as a result of of the pageant’s rising dimension: sustaining that “community spirit” she fondly remembers is unattainable in a non permanent metropolis of 130.000 folks. She feels that one thing wants to change. About what, she is not certain.

One other factor you gained’t usually see within the advertising and marketing materials is how a lot the climate can form your pageant expertise—and in Denmark, it could make all the distinction. The summer season of 2024 introduced rain and chilly to the Roskilde Pageant. At evening, I shivered in my tent as temperatures unexpectedly dropped to 7–10°C. I believe about how I would have by no means imagined being involved about getting sick at a music pageant in July.

One other implication is that whereas many describe the pageant as notoriously dusty, this 12 months’s downpours turned the grounds into a muddy hellscape. Rubber boots and raincoats grew to become important gear, with pageant goers splashing via the flooded terrain, making the perfect of the soggy chaos. Amid this scene, I discover bottle collectors transferring via the crowd. For safety, they use trash luggage and no matter objects they can discover. One man wears a makeshift plastic coat branded with the Copenhagen Metro brand, whereas most rely on scarves and muddy caps—possible scavenged from the bottom. They are, too, pageant goers, anticipated to rely on their personal sources. I surprise how they are managing.

When I ask one of many bottle collectors about these struggles—I refer to him as Joe since he prefers to stay nameless—he simply shakes his head and retains repeating, “It is shit, this year is shit.” We converse a mixture of Italian and English: Joe presently lives in Italy and works at a pizzeria close to Rome. He comes to the pageant yearly “to make money” and places in his hardest effort amassing bottles. On common, he earns 1 DKK (0,13 EUR) for each container or cup he gathers. For comparability, a dishwasher or restaurant employee in Denmark can count on to earn130–170 DKK per hour earlier than taxes. To match that, since the refund is tax-free, Joe would wish to acquire round 75 objects per hour—not counting the numerous hours spent ready in line to trade them. When I ask if he manages to sleep regardless of the chilly and the noise, he merely says he doesn’t sleep, solely works—and laughs.

The stoic mentality of “it is what it is” is an invisible power that retains part of the pageant’s waste cycle in movement. It is attention-grabbing to observe how, whereas the ‘Orange feeling’ is all about liberation, it appears to rely on a dynamic that is removed from free. The pageant’s carefree revelry relies upon partially on the relentless labor of others—a quiet contradiction in its ethos.

Trash is treasure: Hanging out at the refund stations

Even although Roskilde Pageant spans a powerful 2.500.000 sq. meters, and is estimatedto host 50.000 tents, there are solely three refund stations, plus one Drop&Go refund machine. These refund stations are the fundamental stage of my volunteering expertise supporting the bottle collectors. The work is comparatively centralized since everybody amassing will want to come back by one among these three refund stations, sooner or later, to have their containers exchanged. As a outcome, I really feel like I am rapidly getting acquainted with the collectors’ neighborhood.

Surprisingly, the refund stations function manually. The operations are run by youth associations and volunteers as younger as 17 years outdated. They rely and kind the deposits manually, then add the cash digitally to the person’s wristband. Whereas these stations are open to everybody, in apply, they primarily serve the bottle collectors.

The refund stations have adjusted their opening hours over the years. Whereas they used to remain open till daybreak, in 2024, “West City” and “Agora L” operated every day from 08:00 to 02:00, whereas “East City” was open from 10:00 to 04:00. This considerably impacts the workday of the collectors: daytime tends to be comparatively quiet, however the nights are intense, with everybody speeding to make their trade earlier than the station closes, making an attempt to maximize the “best hours.” As the pageant progresses, the quantity of bottles, aluminum cans, and different refundable objects grows bigger and bigger, and the dealing with time for each individual will increase proportionally—the extra containers to rely, the longer it takes, particularly as the counting course of is solely handbook. Dollies and child strollers are standard instruments for maximizing the quantity of bottles a collector can carry, and gaffer tape makes a reappearance—this time securing cans for transport, simply as it held provides collectively on the way in which to the pageant. Halfway via the pageant, folks usually confronted a 4-6 hour wait to have their refunds counted—a mandatory step earlier than heading again “on the field” to start out the course of all over once more.

The pageant provides quite a few volunteering alternatives for these keen to contribute in numerous methods. Earlier within the textual content, I talked about my choice to volunteer to get nearer to the bottle collectors‘ experience. I owe most of my contact to the social project “Responsible Refund,” a grassroots volunteer initiative aiming to help and celebrate the refund collectors during the festival. Through Responsible Refund, I was engaged as an “intercultural mediator.” Based at the refund stations, my role involved spending time there, assisting the bottle collectors queuing with any questions they might have, and managing potential conflicts. This was a support role distinct from that of a security guard or an info point representative. The project’s imaginative and prescient was to bridge the often-overlooked communication hole between refund stations and collectors. Refund stations have been accountable solely for counting bottles and have been not anticipated to take into account the difficult and messy circumstances through which collectors labored or the particular wants they may have.

However what occurs to all these objects after they’re handed over? On the closing day, after per week of music, mud, and refund objects, I converse with Janne, a 25-year-old scholar and a group chief in one of many refund stations. He explains that whereas merchandise with the Danish customary refundlabels ‘Pant A,’ ‘Pant B,’ ‘Pant C’ are picked up every day—getting into into the nationwide machine of Dansk Retursystem—the festival-particular bottles and cups are despatched to a washing facility to be cleaned and reused the next 12 months. The classes of things that neither maintain a depositexterior the pageant nor could be reused— like crushed bottles or international beers—are merelygathered and despatched to the trash recycling system. Nonetheless, at Roskilde, these objects have a refund worth priced at 0,2 DKK (in EUR, 3 cents), which is fairly a lot irrelevant to the business-minded collectors (and understandably so). I don’t see any of these objects within the crimson refund luggage at the again of the stations.

Janne takes satisfaction within the influence of the refund stations. They processed 2 million refund objects in 2024, 2.9 million the 12 months earlier than. I attempt to image 2 million beer bottles in my thoughts, howeverhow can I? It simply feels like too a lot.

Think about this web site with out bottle collectors. As festival-goers drink and scatter their cups round like farmers planting crops, the discarded objects would merely pile up, turning the grounds into an even trashier—and maybe solely unmanageable—panorama.

The move of capital is equally hanging. Whereas many collectors choose not to disclose their earnings, phrase on the road claims somebody made 50,000 DKK (round 6,700 €) internet in only one week. However don’t take my phrase for it—let’s break it down. To earn 50,000 DKK, they might want to make an common of seven,100 DKK every day, amassing about 700 objects per hour over a 10-hour, continuous workday. That’s roughly 11 objects each single minute. Whereas this determine appears extremely unrealistic, it highlights how the blurry promise of “good money” persuades bottle collectors that it’s all price it.

An common shift is typically quiet. The queue strikes slowly as collectors sit on damaged tenting chairs, smoking and ready their flip. At evening, many huddle by the wood construction of the refund station for shelter, dozing off on the damp floor. When their flip comes, somebody in line wakes them, following what appears to be an unstated rule of mutual solidarity.

A “village feeling” lingers within the air—virtually nobody comes alone. Many collectors, like Joe, return 12 months after 12 months, usually residing close by within the Copenhagen space. I converse with Prince, initially from Ghana however now an Italian resident, who expresses his frustration. It’s his first time at the pageant, lured by the promise of “good money,” however he finds the competitors overwhelming. “The Romanians take everything,” he complains.

He refers to Romani households, who are a dominant presence amongst collectors. Tensions simmer between the African and Romani teams, fueled by accusations of breaking unstated guidelines, such as ready in line. The stakes are excessive—for the Romani, many have instructed me that this earnings can assist their households in Romania for months. They usually push boundaries, reducing consistent with recent luggage of bottles whereas one other household member holds their spot. These moments of battle spotlight the significance, for me, of having mediators current, able to step in when the tone turns into heated.

Individuals sleep, smoke, and chat in their circles of crooked tenting chairs, as the pageant swirls round them. Their “Invisible” presence is an important a part of the pageant setting. Surviving on the fringes, they are, in many methods, the unrecognized dustmen of the ‘Orange feeling.’

Outro: the numerous faces of the refund system

Festivals can serve as a window to the longer term; every version is barely completely different, displaying that change is each doable and mandatory. These values have formed Roskilde Pageant’s model, however as my week at Roskilde Pageant unfolds, its contradictions develop into unattainable to ignore.

Of course, Roskilde Pageant’s organizers are properly conscious of its environmental sustainability points. In accordance to Statista, Denmark not too long ago ranked as the highest waste producer per capita in Europe, at 787 kilograms per inhabitant—so maybe it makes sense to assume that consumerism is engrained within the nation’s tradition. At Roskilde, the influence of particular person conduct even exceeds the influence of the pageant’s manufacturing: in accordance to reviews, this campsite waste makes up 75% of the complete quantity of two,2 thousand tons of trash generated by the pageant. Presently, it is frequent apply for pageant goers to go away behind giant quantities of private belongings, together with their tents, on the location; it constitutes a mass of unrecyclablewastse that can solely find yourself at the nearest incineration plant.

There are already a lot of case research and analysis obtainable on-line about Roskilde Pageant optimum waste administration; the actual problem lies in altering the underlying tradition. Roskilde Pageant’s present perspective in direction of consumerism focuses on “influencing behaviorand inspiring.” A few of the initiatives that the pageant has been taking in latest years have included a devoted web page on environmental accountability (amongst others) on its web site, the creation of a “Circular Lab” to present a PR platform to circularity-focused startups, and the institution of eco-acutely aware campsite communities—“Leave No Trace Camp,” “CleanOut Loud Camp” and, beginning in 2022, “Common Ground”—the place folks would entry via an utility course of.

Nonetheless, these communities, which create a form of counterculture inside the pageant, stay a minority. The occasion primarily depends on its personal grand cleansing machine activated within the final few days, with vehicles and heavy equipment going round the campsite. And it strikes swiftly: on July nineteenth, much less than two weeks after the pageant closed, I visited the location, and every thing was spotless.

It is additionally price commenting on how the administration seems to acknowledge the presence of bottle collectors, as the refund stations’ operations are designed to accommodate the collectors’ workflow fairly than focusing solely on particular person prospects. Regardless of that, no significant “benefits” are offered. For instance, offering a quieter resting space for bottle collectors—one thing that already occurs for the pageant volunteers—might be a optimistic step. Presently, they are left to sleep at the fundamental campsite.

On the finish of the day, the programs and constructions that festivals rely on are formed by their environment, that means festivals usually replicate the identical systemic issues as society at giant. It is fascinating to observe the behavioral variations festivals can encourage and to think about which behaviors are—or aren’t—supported by their particular programs.

Trash is a important difficulty at the pageant, one that the largely unacknowledged collectors play a essential function in managing. The ‘Orange feeling’ thrives on the thought of freedom and neighborhood, but it is constructed on contradictions. Whereas festival-goers have fun liberation, the invisible labor of bottle collectors performs an important function in sustaining the pageant’scleanliness and sustainability. Their neglected efforts expose a deeper rigidity: the pageant’s ethos depends on programs that marginalize these who maintain it.

Roskilde Pageant may have grown to the purpose of benefiting from coverage interventions, similar to a actual metropolis. As it continues to navigate its complexities and strives to align extra carefully with its values, acknowledging and addressing these underlying dynamics might be the subsequentstep in aligning its beliefs additional with its actuality.

Gallery of photos from the final day and after closing

This text was printed below the Come Collectively journalism fellowship programme organized by Gerador. The article was initially printed by Kurziv.