Philadelphia Folk Festival takes on a green theme

At the Earthship booth, people will be able to pound tires that could soon become the foundation of a home.

The Hemp Hut area will push a plant with myriad uses: oil, clothing, food, and paper. (No, it won't get you high.)

And a small stage is powered by solar panels - the better for the Sustainable Living Roadshow to get its eco-message across.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Philadelphia Folk Festival is veering green. Note to young patrons: Even some of the music is recycled.

As it gets into full swing today at the Old Pool Farm near Schwenksville, Montgomery County, organizers are trying to bring the fest out of the world of disposable styrofoam and into one of biodegradable cutlery.

"It's been head-spinning," said Levi Landis, executive director of the Philadelphia Folksong Society, which puts on the annual bash.

But the expected 30,000 attendees - including maybe 5,000 campers - have a hefty footprint any way you look at it.

Organizers have long encouraged recycling. Now they're asking people to sign a "no trace" pledge to leave the grounds clean.

Levi and others say all this is only, well, natural.

Folk music has long been associated with peace, justice, and environmental concerns.

After all, as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and so many others have sung, "this land is your land. . . ."

The fest's green momentum started to kick in last year, when the Giving Tree Band gave a grant to revamp the mailing list. By weeding out defunct addresses and encouraging e-mail sign-ups, paper usage dropped by a third.

The band, which is from Illinois and won't be on hand this year, has instruments made from naturally fallen trees, not logged ones.

"It's part of who we are," said the band's Todd Fink.

About the same time, Todd Henkin, 29, singer with the West Philly band Great Unknown, started pestering the festival management. It was his first time there, and he thought he would be more likely to return if it were greener.

"I started out a complainer," he said. Now he heads the fest's "green team."

A fellow greenie is Nic Esposito, 27, who has an urban farm in Kensington and is selling his book, Seeds of Discent - a word play on dissent and descent - at the fest.

Organizers said food vendors had to sign contracts agreeing to have compostable cutlery, cups, and plates.

Bins to accept the material, along with paper napkins, food waste, and other biodegradables, have been set up. The stuff will wind up at Waste Management's industrial composting facility in Wilmington.

But not everyone got the message.

"I got an e-mail last Thursday," said Steve Radomski of the Skippack Lions Club, whose food booth is a fund-raiser. "Last Thursday is not the time to tell me." He already had 10,000 styrofoam cups. "Next year we'll be better."

Likewise, the Upper Salford Fire Company food booth was well-stocked with plastic and styrofoam instead of compostables, which can cost two to five times more.

Deputy Chief Tom Burgmeier said the company does its best - solar panels are atop the firehouse roof - but "do you want to be green, or do you want to make money to protect the community?"

Well, it's a work in progress in a society that, as Joni Mitchell sang, "paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

So Zachary Carson, 29, a former Lower Merion guy who has been touring as part of the Sustainable Living Road Show, still has some educating to do.

Sponsored by Birkenstock, the footwear company, he travels across the country with 25 young volunteers, doing off-the-grid eco festivals.

The main bus - named Julia after a woman who lived in a redwood tree in California for two years to keep it from being cut down - is powered with biodiesel and solar panels.

The group will run workshops on urban homesteading and make-it-yourself biofuel.

At the "Toss Out Fossil Fuels" tent, visitors toss beanbags at oil derricks and coal plants. If they knock one over, a wind turbine or solar panels pop up.

To Carson, it's all about engaging people through fun and art. Not preaching.

A few years ago, he had to pay to get into festivals. Then, organizers started letting him in free. Now, they pay him to come.

So onward it is, with the "GMO Freak Show" that warns of the ills of genetically modified foods. And the organic teahouse.

By the time Arlo Guthrie takes the stage Saturday night - where he could sing "Alice's Restaurant," his antiwar song that begins with being arrested for littering - the festival organizers hope to divert 40 percent of its waste. Will they make it?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.