Each year, A Greener Festival award music festivals from across the globe for being dedicated to running sustainable, environmentally-friendly music festivals. Last year they handed out four awards to Australian festivals, and this year that figure has doubled to a record-breaking eight Australian festivals.

Peats Ridge Festival have taken out an 'Outstanding Award', and Southbound, Blues'n'Roots, WOMADelaide, Fairbridge, Island Vibe, Bluesfest and both the Lorne and Marion Bay sites of The Falls Music & Arts Festival have been rewarded for their contributions.

From recycled paper ticketing to refillable water bottles, from organic food stalls to composting waste, all of these festivals implement ways to protect their beautiful sites and minimise their carbon footprint. This isn't always an easy task, and for some of these festivals they are working against the mindlessness of their patrons, who may not understand the importance of the area where the festival is held, or they just don't care. But still they persevere and try to outdo their prior performance, and the performance of the other festivals.

The Falls Music & Arts Festival have gone as far as having worm farms on site to process the biodegradable waste and water is collected year round in the site's many rain water tanks for drinking and timed showering.

Ego Tripping congratulates all the winning festivals, and wishes them luck as they inevitably start gearing up for the 2010/11 festival season and get greener still!

Now let's see some metropolitan festivals following suit, yeah?

Photo by Sarah Anderson. Taken from The Falls Music & Arts Festival website.