Byron Council Love Splendour In The Grass’ Toilets

6 June 2014 | 12:49 pm | Staff Writer

Festival's award winning shitters

More Splendour In The Grass More Splendour In The Grass

It would appear that the tension between the Greens-led Byron Shire Council and Splendour In The Grass' North Byron Parklands is well and truly a thing of the past, with the council last night celebrating the organisers... for their sustainable shitters.

The Parklands had been at the centre of a long dispute between the festival promoters and local community over sustainability concerns, with the festival even moving to Woodford for a couple of years because of the delay in approval.

Now the permanent home of the event – and Falls' Byron Bay leg – the council are not only seeing the financial benefit to the area, but last night awards the Parklands with a council-decided World Environment Day Award – for their composting toilets.

Having run a trial system last year, the Parklands have now been granted approval for 258 of the dunnies, with 240 set to be rolled out as permanent assets for the site. They'll be used for both Splendour and Falls moving forward.

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The Parklands' General Manager Mat Morris said, “Parklands are delighted to receive this acknowledgement for its composting toilet program. We are very excited to announce the expansion of this program based on council's recent approval of 258 composting toilets at Parklands.

"This composting program strongly supports the objective of our environmental policy which is to manage waste streams on-site and in a sustainable manner.”

The waterless and odourless toilets rely on natural biological processes to break down waste while also limiting truck movements on site.

Byron Shire Council's sustainability officer was not immediately available for comment.