News

1,057,743 Danish kroner. This is the exact value of the bottles and cans donated by Roskilde Festival's audience to the humanitarian refund collection at the festival in 2009.

This is equivalent to every festival-goer donating 15 beer cans to the festival's humanitarian focus.

The result is achieved thanks to a wide effort from 1094 volunteer refund collectors from Danish relief organisation DanChurchAid and great support from the audience at this year's Roskilde Festival.

The refund collection ran over 10 days – during all eight festival days and the days following when the whole area was vacuumed for remaining bottles and cans.

Furthermore, refund boxes were put up all over the festival area so that the audience could hand in their refund for the good purpose.

Refund donation goes to victims of climate changes
In 2009, Roskilde Festival focused on climate changes in the campaign 'Green Footsteps'. Therefore, the profit from the humanitarian refund collection goes to victims of climate changes in Bengal – a region that includes Bangladesh, India and Nepal.

Bengal is severely stricken by flooding, which affects especially the poor part of the population. In Bangladesh about one third of the country is flooded every year due to monsoon rains, making it difficult to grow crops. The Bangladeshi government expects the southern part of the country – where 40 million people are currently living – to be flooded within the next 30 years.

Rainwater collectors and water treatment plants
The means from the refund collection are donated directly to DanChurchAid projects in Bengal. DanChurchAid collaborates with local organisations in Bengal to help the poorest people in the rural areas cope with the climate changes they are struggling with.

They plan to distribute rainwater collectors and build water treatment plants for people who do not have wells and pumps with clean drinking water. In addition, the projects focus on helping the poor in Bangladesh dike to prevent flooding, and raise houses so that they can withstand the severe water flows during flooding.

The money collected is equivalent to the costs of building 300 new houses that can withstand light flooding or quickly be moved during heavy flooding.

Roskilde Festival and DanChurchAid has collaborated on the humanitarian refund collection since 2002.