Cheryl Crow Wants Recycled Toilet Paper At All Her Gigs

AUGUST 11--Touring the United States and Europe this year, Sheryl Crow arrives at venues with an assortment of environmental demands certain to vex concert promoters, according to a review of the musician’s 2010 backstage rider.

The document, excerpted here, actually has a 2-1/2 page “environmental portion” to be “strictly followed and policed.” Seeking to “minimize the overall environmental impact of our tour,” Crow demands that only biodegradable cups and dinnerware be used by the caterer. Produce should be “organic and purchased from local suppliers as much as possible.” And for the five backstage “watering stations,” water “must be sourced from a local spring water vendor.”

According to Crow’s rider, her tour party travels between gigs in two 45-foot buses, while her equipment is packed into two tractor-trailers.

Crow, 48, also offers promoters “venue greening suggestions.” She wants “traditional light bulbs” swapped out for compact fluorescent bulbs in “all offices, dressing rooms and common areas.” “Eco-friendly cleaning and bathroom products” and “post-consumer recycled toilet paper and paper towel” should also be used. Crow’s rider also notes that, “We strongly encourage you to use renewable sources and/or to buy sustainable energy credits where possible. Many local utilities offer ‘green power’ as an option--please check with yours and opt in.”

The document also details how Crow’s backstage hospitality room is to be stocked. The singer needs an assortment of “biodegradable non-petroleum cups” and 24 “disposable napkins made of 100% recycled fiber.” Crow’s rider also lists a wide variety of drinks and snacks that she needs, including organic coconut water and two bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon (“Sheryl’s Favorite” is Stag’s Leap Artemis). Two “good quality, dark, organic chocolate bars” are described as “***VERY IMPORTANT***”

If there truly IS a God, then Cheryl will soon lose her voice, go bankrupt, and be forced to seek employment as a toilet-paper-recycler-specialist. Maybe, trying to wring out those teeny little wads of dissolving shit-sheets would bring her enough to her senses to realize that TOILET PAPER CANNOT BE RECYCLED YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

And certain of these recycling efforts are quite harmful to the economy, as MOST modern paper of all types come from tree-farms. Acreage that has been set aside, sometimes for decades, as sustainable crop to be used without having to resort to deforestation elsewhere. The single biggest destroyer of trees comes from the Loews and Home Depot demand for DECKING projects. Yes, the same morons that demand recycled this and that will happily add on one outside deck after another in their goal to out-do the Joneses. And complaining about paper products that come from tree-farms is as silly as putting an onus on consuming corn because it destroys all of the plants on those pretty corn farms.