Burning Man festival goes green in its 22nd year

RENO, Nev. -- More than 40,000 people are expected to converge on the northern Nevada desert beginning Monday for the annual Burning Man counterculture arts festival dedicated to "radical self-expression and radical self-reliance."

Participants from around the world will spend the week leading up to Labor Day in Black Rock City, a makeshift 5-square-mile encampment on the playa of the remote, sprawling Black Rock Desert, about 120 miles north of Reno.

Authorities expect as many as 45,000 people to attend the eclectic, anything-goes gathering. Last year's crowd peaked at 39,100, up 6.6 percent over the previous year.

The festival climaxes with the traditional torching of a 40-foot-tall wooden figure known as "The Man," the event's namesake object. Other artwork is also burned.

Protecting the environment is the theme of the 22nd annual festival. In addition to solar panels powering the pavilion at the base of "The Man," the event will feature demonstrations of bicycles with generators and gasification machines that eat trash.

"People can show what they're doing to try and save the planet," Burning Man board member Will Roger Peterson told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "They'll be showing technology and art together."

Local Albertsons grocery stores will be selling such eco-friendly items as bio-degradable garbage bags, hemp rope and solar-powered camping lights for participants.

James Cooper of Sparks said he fills an "art car" he built with bio-diesel fuel. His "Surly Bird" car was made from a red pickup truck with a flat bed, upper deck and canopy.

"We call it a double-decker party car," he said. "We basically roll around and provide art and a mobile party for people."