Eco Clubbing: Recycling Dancers’ Energy

Tuesday, 06 October 2009 07:20

Each week millions of exuberant human beings head out of their houses and into nightclubs to expend large amounts of energy on the dance floor. What if this energy could be captured and used again? Green initiatives are hitting the dance floors all over the world. According to them, “all you have to do is dance to save the world”.

The sustainable night clubs features a piezoelectric dance floor, which uses quartz crystals and ceramics to turn all gyrating energy into electricity. The technology is known as electromagnetic induction, and involves a network of springs and magnets that convert downward movement mechanically into energy. The more you jump, the more energy you generate by the shaking of the ground.

Sustainable Dance Club (SDC) is a pioneer in the field, an initiative started by the Rotterdam based organizations Enviu and Döll. The company is continuously developing and extending their idea, and also took part in EU and MTV Play to Stop event in Stockholm August 2009. Apart from developing the sustainable dance floor system, there are more products coming, like personal cup holders and compact mini dance floors made for 3 to 4 people.

Could this become next-generation’s night club? A survey conducted by SDC last year found that at least 66 percent of Dutch clubbers would be willing to pay more for a green night out.

Here are a couple of European venues where you can dance for the future:

Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Club WATT

WATT is a pioneer in the sustainable night club business. To help meet the city of Rotterdam’s targets to cut  its CO2 emissions by 50% by 2025, Ted Langenbach, together with the SDC team, took on the challenge of building the first sustainable dance club. WATT is now as sustainable as possible and has written a sustainable business plan to help continually improve its efficiency. The club aims to be the talk-of-the-town, with the key phrases “Treading a New Path”, “Great Times”, and “Try to Beat This”.

London, United Kingdom: Surya/Club4Climate

Club Surya, Britain’s first eco-nightclub, is located in London. Besides a sustainable dance floor, Club Surya offers organic beverages, waterless urinals and automatic taps. A wind turbine and a solar energy system make the club fully sustainable. The remaining energy after a night's clubbing is distributed to local families free of charge.

Surya belongs to the expanding Club4Climate project, led by no other than a guy nicknamed Dr. Earth, which goes even further than SDC’s concept, claiming that building sustainable dance floors is not practically possible for every bar or night clubs. Their so-called “Surya Model” offers climate friendly suggestions that any club or bar on the planet can implement without negatively impacting rather enhancing the economic prospects.

Links:

Sustainable Dance club
http://www.sustainabledanceclub.com/

Play to Stop
http://www.coolplanet2009.org/cool-projects-for-a-better-planet/420-play-for-the-climate-with-mtv-and-the-european-commission.html

WATT
http://www.watt-rotterdam.nl/

Club4Climate
http://www.club4climate.com/