Green Venue
Inner City Music is actively working on the reducing the environmental impact of our activities, there are several ways in which this is done, but the basic principle is always to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
Renovation
A major contribution to reducing waste was bringing the Band on the Wall and Picturehouse buildings back into use. Building new buildings are amongst the most resource heavy processes there are. The building was extensively renovated between 2005 and 2009 in a £3.6m project funded by ACE, HLF and MCC.
Funded capital projects of this nature adhere to the percent for art scheme requires that a percentage of the build cost is spent on public art work.
Carpet
There were a number of examples of this within the Band on the Wall. One aspect was the carpet; this was best quality Axminster, manufactured by Brintons and was a unique 3 dimensional design. The artwork was designed on a 1 to 1 scale – each pixel was a tuft of wool – and represents the cutting edge of carpet manufacture. After 4 years of operation the carpet had suffered significant damage from chewing gum. Inner City Music tried various method of cleaning but decided that prevention was better than cure.
Gumdrop
To this end we enlisted the help of Gumdrop Ltd, an innovative award winning company who developed the world’s first process that allows waste gum to be recycled into a new polymer, Gumtec.
In a pilot project supported by Wrigleys, Gumdrop are supplying bins to Band on the Wall and monitoring the uptake of their use.
These Gumdrop bins are situated within the venue, giving patrons a place to dispose of chewed gum. These gumdrops and their contents are sent back to Gumdrop and are recycled and made into new gumdrop bins, and ultimately any number of products. This simple idea can help councils around the country save millions of pounds in street cleaning not to mention saving our floors at Band on the Wall.
Inner City Music has had to cover the carpet – and therefore the artwork within the venue – with a basic anthracite carpet. There is an intention long term to replace this with a similar quality floor covering previously on show, but prior to this ICM aims to educate audiences to dispose of their waste properly and conscientiously in the gumdrop bins provided.
This will help Inner City Music maintain the high quality of the venue for all audiences to enjoy, whilst helping the environment by using an existing waste stream for new products.
Further information about the green initiatives at Band on the Wall can be found here.