This year Bloom, in conjunction with Dublin City Council and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has taken major steps in ‘greening’ Ireland’s largest garden festival. This initiative is part of the EPA’s National Waste Prevention Programme.

The Bloom festival takes place over the June Bank Holiday – Thursday 29th May to Monday 2nd June with an expected audience in the region of 120,000 coming to Phoenix Park over the weekend.

Last year, a large amount of festival waste was recycled, with remaining waste being converted to energy. This meant that nowaste from Bloom 2013 was sent to landfill.

This year a major step in extending its green credentials will be ensuring that food waste and packaging will be composted. All food vendors will be using certified compostable packaging.  As a result, all food service packaging will be commercially composted and used in landscaping.

To ensure Bloom 2014 is as waste friendly as possible, this year we are introducing a three bin system, to allow segregation of waste by visitors at the festival. There will be 1 bin for food and compostable packaging waste, 1 bin for recyclables and 1 bin for general waste.

Green ambassador volunteers will be assisting and discussing recycling/composting and food waste prevention to members of the public throughout the festival

Bloom 2014 – Show Garden

In Ireland over 1 million tonnes of food waste is disposed of per year. On average 1/3 comes from homes, which means that each person is throwing away 80kg of food waste per year. This is the weight equivalent of 80 bags of sugar needlessly discarded per person per year. Food waste is a real problem and is costing Irish householders on average €700 each year. Most of our wasted food ends up in landfills where it has significant local environmental impacts.

2014 is the European year against Food Waste and to coincide with this programme, Dublin City Council, in conjunction with the EPA has commissioned a ‘waste garden’ at Bloom 2014. The main focus of this garden must be on food waste prevention, recycling and composting of food and garden waste.

This is the national launch of the programme which will be rolled out across the country throughout the remaining part of the year.