Set against the backdrop of Dartmouth’s beautiful coast, Dart Music Festival is an annual event that brings music lovers together for a weekend of free live performances. Entirely volunteer-run and free to attend, the festival is a true celebration of community spirit.
DCW has been proud to partner with Dart Music Festival for the past eight years, supporting the team to reduce their environmental impact and ensure the town remains spotless, even after thousands descend on it to enjoy the music.
The Challenge
Each year, Dart Music Festival welcomes a huge number of visitors, with performances taking place across a variety of unique venues — from historic churches and an English Heritage site, to community parks and a 200-year-old pannier market.
Managing waste across these busy, varied locations and keeping litter to a minimum presents a real logistical challenge. The organising team is small, voluntary, and committed to protecting Dartmouth’s environment and heritage, so they needed a waste management partner who truly understood the festival and could scale their support as the event grew.
The Solution
Since 2016, DCW has worked closely with the Dart Music Festival team to build a waste management plan tailored to their specific needs. Our support goes beyond simply collecting waste — we take the time to understand how the festival operates and help ensure the smooth running of each event.
This year, we increased our capacity to meet the festival’s growing needs and provided responsive support throughout the weekend. Our team helped keep each venue clean and safe, providing the flexibility and reliability required to manage such a busy, multi-site event.
The Results
Thanks to our partnership, Dart Music Festival 2025 was one of the cleanest yet. Despite large crowds and multiple venues, the spaces remained remarkably litter-free — a point noticed and appreciated by both the organisers and the public.
“The increased capacity DCW provided this year along with their outstanding support had a real, positive impact on the festival,” said the Dart Music Festival team.
“Despite thousands of visitors enjoying the weekend, our venues stayed clean and remarkably litter-free.”
Even more importantly, our shared commitment to sustainability helped the festival continue to make progress on its environmental goals.
“Sustainability isn’t just a box we tick — it’s something we take seriously. Partnering with a company like DCW, who truly share that commitment to the environment, allowed us to make real progress in reducing our impact this year.”
DCW is proud to support the festival and honoured to be recommended by the team to other event organisers:
“Their professionalism, values, and understanding of what matters to local communities make them a perfect fit for us.”
Planning a Festival or Event?
If you’re organising an event and need a waste management partner who shares your environmental values, get in touch. We’d love to help make your event a clean, sustainable success. Call us on 01392 361300 or email sales@dcw.co.uk.