“ The retailers are taking in the profit while the festival organisers have to deal with the consequences , and the environment pays the price ”
- Chiara Badiali , Julie ’ s Bicycle
Green Nation , which was adopted as global Live Nation policy in 2019 .
Among the initiatives Festival Republic has in place to tackle litter is enabling charities and not-for-profit groups to access its festival sites post-event to salvage tents and camping equipment . It has also run public-facing campaigns in an attempt to discourage people from leaving tents and equipment behind .
“ This year has shown that we can ’ t let up on the public engagement campaigns , it ’ s not enough to do it once – it ’ s something that has to be ongoing ,” says Chiara Badiali , knowledge and sector intelligence lead at music industry environmental action group Julie ’ s Bicycle .
She points out that the huge focus on the threat of Covid-19 has not helped matters : “ Every new generation of festivalgoers has to be reengaged and reminded and I think what ’ s happened this year , in part , is that a lot of that public engagement and communications bandwidth has been taken up with all the Covid messaging and the waste reduction message has got a bit lost within that .”
In May 2019 , the Association of Independent Festivals ( AIF ) launched its Take Your Tent Home consumer-facing campaign , with the slogan Say No To Single Use .
“ It ’ s a couple of years ago now but all the messages of that campaign remain very pertinent ,” says AIF CEO Paul Reed . “ It ’ s an ongoing campaign , we share the assets with members and they use them on site . We need to continue
pushing it year on year to try to drive that message home .”
The AIF estimates that 250,000 tents are left at music festivals across the UK each year and , with the average tent weighing 3.5kg and being made mostly of plastic , it is the equivalent of 8,750 straws or 250 pint cups per tent . In 2018 , the organisation published the result of research that found 9.7 % of people attending its member events had ditched a tent during that year ’ s festival season , equating to around 875 tonnes of plastic waste .
Reed believes there is a common misconception among festivalgoers that if they leave their tent at a festival it will be repurposed , when 90 % of the time that isn ’ t the case . While that is another issue that needs to be emphasised via consumer education , the underlying problem is the fact consumers are able to purchase tents for as little as £ 20 from supermarkets that advertise them as festival tents , and therefore could be interpreted as being single-use .
Amanda Campbell and James Molkenthin , two design students at University College London , set up a company called Comp-a-Tent in 2016 , a service designed to encourage users to take care of their tents and return them so they can be used again and again .
Comp-a-Tent enables festivalgoers to buy pop-up tents that can be collected from its on-site stall . After the event , it buys back any tent stock deemed reusable . They are then used for another season , and then retired to charity partners such as ABC and Gift Your Gear , for a second life as shelter for refugees , outdoor youth programmes and pre-pitch campsite provider Camplight .
Research by Comp-A-Tent found 18,500 tents were abandoned at one festival alone , equating to 44 % of those used during the event . It suggests that with less than 5 % of abandoned tents getting salvaged , around 1 million are being incinerated each year , and some festival organisers pay up to £ 100,000 per year to collect and incinerate them .
Comp-A-Tent claims as many as 36 % of tents left at festivals are bought from either Argos or Tesco . Argos is currently selling them for as little as £ 25 , while at ASDA you can pick one up for £ 20 , and Tesco has a four-man tent for £ 50 . Reed is among many who believe that retailers are at least partly responsible for the problem , and his organisation
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