In the city of Munich and in cities throughout Germany, governments spend millions of euros and take months preparing for the festival. Breweries, restaurants, and hotels have to prepare for the big day due to the millions of people that typically show up to celebrate!
The festival began as a famed wedding celebration in 1810 for the Prince of Bavaria, and the tradition has held to this day! Oktoberfest is important to Germans because it preserves their heritage of foods, drinks, music and cultural customs that they can share with people from around the world. Oktoberfest is the main celebration of German culture and nationality... sort of like how we have the 4th of July in the U.S.A.!
Oktoberfest preserves traditional methods of preparing foods while also teaching people about how Germany used to build and sustain communities before the modern day. While this is a great thing to learn about, it can be very bad for the environment when millions of people show up in one place to party all at once!
It is estimated that almost 100,000 liters of wine, 7 million liters of beer, 600,000 chickens, and 250,000 pork sausages are consumed during the two week festival alone!! This is SO much food and drink- and it can cause a lot of damage to the evironment. People also tend to leave huge messes behind once the festival ends.
Luckily, Germans are getting very good at preparing for and cleaning up the festivities. They intend to sustain the festival without causing too many problems for food manufacturers, local businesses, and the environment itself.
