30-thousand people are expected to take in the music down at the Calgary Folk Festival this weekend.

All those people eating and drinking means a lot of garbage.

But new measures are in place this year to make sure the festival leaves its mark on music lovers, not the environment.

The festival's general manager, Les Siemieniuk, says the festival has long considered itself an environmental leader: eight years ago it became the first completely wind powered music festival.

"For years we were sort of ahead of the general public with things because they made sense economically and philosophically. But everybody's caught up."

Not wanting to run with the pack, festival organizers are stepping things up this year to further distinguish the event as an environmental leader.

A new position was created.

Leor Rotchild was hired as the eco manager of the festival.

Rotchild says his job is to coordinate all the vendors and make sure all the programs are running smoothly.

"An event like this, you have to realize, produces a lot of waste. If it's not being recycled, if it's not being composted, then all of it is going to our landfills, and that's a really bad thing."

Besides being wind powered, a number of stations are located all over the festival grounds where people can recycle their bottles and compost their leftover food.

Festival volunteers are manning the stations so that they can make sure people aren't throwing things in the garbage that can be recycled and they're also there to educate people about the importance of going green.

There's also a plate recycling centre where you pay two dollars as a deposit and get the money back when you return the plate.

Something new this year is all the vendors have to use compostable utensils.

Last year Big Rock Brewery introduced compostable cups.

Tom Stuart, a Big Rock spokesperson, says he expects up to 70-thousand cups of beer will be sold this weekend.

"They're a 100% corn based cup. They decompose in about 60-90 days if they're disposed of properly in the right facilities. There are two facilities in Alberta that we use. We just want to make sure that we're doing the right thing."

Festival organizers are working with Clean Calgary Association to measure the amount of recycling going on this weekend.

Once those numbers are compiled, they'll use the data as a benchmark for future festivals.

Those numbers should be released sometime next week.