When you're at a festival, you're probably not thinking about how much CO₂ is being produced — but the average US music festival emits roughly 228 metric tons of the stuff.

To find out which of the country's festivals have the biggest carbon footprint, Payless Power looked at the estimated attendance numbers, CO₂ emissions, recycling programs and more for some of the most popular music festivals in the US.

The festival with the largest carbon footprint overall is Milwaukee's Summerfest, which emits an estimated 827 metric tons of CO₂. Utopiafest in Texas, on the other hand, produces just one metric ton of CO₂, making it one of the country's lowest-emitting music festivals.

The study also found that 70 percent of festivals provide free water refill stations, while half offer waste reduction and recycling programs and 25 percent compost their food scraps.

Via Payless Power.

[Image credit: Wendy Wei]