Turning Festival Waste into Function

Client: Roskilde Festival
Year: 2025
Focus: Event Waste Recycling | Circular Materials | Public Furniture

Each year, Roskilde Festival brings together thousands of people, great music, and unfortunately, a massive amount of single-use plastic waste. In 2024, Roskilde Festival and SMALLrevolution joined forces to rethink what happens after the party is over. The result: a powerful collaboration that gave 5 tons of discarded plastic a new, functional life.

The Challenge

Beer cups and pitchers are a staple of any festival, and Roskilde is no exception. But once the drinks are gone, the plastic often ends up broken, contaminated, and without a clear destination. This presents a pressing question: Does plastic waste from large-scale events really need to end up in landfills, or can it be turned into something far more valuable?

Roskilde Festival approached SMALLrevolution with a vision to turn last year’s waste into something that could be used this year.

The Solution

Working closely with the festival’s team, SMALLrevolution collected approximately 5 tons of discarded plastic cups and beer pitchers. After processing the waste into a clean, high-quality recycled raw material, we produced a series of functional furniture pieces, including benches, wine coolers, and tables, all designed to be used at the festival itself.

The process not only closed the loop on last year’s waste but also demonstrated how circular materials can serve large-scale cultural events in real-time.

The Outcome

Visitors to Roskilde Festival 2024 might have unknowingly sat, gathered, or cooled drinks on furniture made from the previous year’s waste. But that’s exactly the point—circular design doesn't need to shout. It simply works, quietly replacing disposable culture with something more lasting and thoughtful.

This project is more than a story about recycling; it's a working model for how major events can reduce their environmental footprint by transforming waste into resources. Together with Roskilde Festival, we’ve shown what’s possible when design, logistics, and responsibility come together.