“ A lot of these retailers , such as Tesco and Argos , have festival season ranges where they run cut-price bundle deals that include items such as chairs and mattresses , which often also get left behind at festivals because they are so cheap .”
Badiali says that Julie ’ s Bicycle and the
Paul Reed Claire O ’ Neill
wider industry has been trying to engage with retailers to stop them marketing and selling festival tents effectively as single use items , but to no avail . As a result , the focus has now shifted to addressing government .
She says : “ We are continuing to try to engage on a policy level with things like extended producer responsibility legislation because that should really apply to bad quality single-use tents where the retailers are taking in the profit while the festival organisers have to deal with the consequences , and the environment pays the price .”
Among the initiatives to attempt to tackle the issue include the Download Ecocamp , which has been a feature at the Festival Republic-run event since 2018 . Hosted by Greenpeace , it accommodated 1,400 campers who sign up to leaving zero waste . Meanwhile , the company ’ s
Electric Picnic festival in Ireland introduced Greta ’ s Campsite , a zero-waste campsite in the main camping grounds of the festival dedicated to environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg .
Andy Smith , co-founder of the 27,000-capacity Kendal Calling festival , has been left so frustrated by the number of abandoned tents at the Lowther Deer Park site in Cumbria that he is preparing to launch a tent deposit scheme that would involve all attendees .
“ We are open to any alternative suggestions , it ’ s the last resort ,” he says . “ We have tried and tried , and the industry as a whole has tried an awful lot to enact change via communication - explaining why people need to take the tents home and talking about the environment , but for certain segments of the audience it just isn ’ t hitting home .”
The proposed system would involve a label being attached to each attendee ’ s tent bag , which is then scanned on entry and exit . If the label is scanned on entry and exit , the holder is refunded £ 10 .
With attendees willing to spend money on a tent for single use , Smith acknowledges that losing £ 10 may not be a sufficient deterrent to persuade the majority of people to take their tents with them , but it will help pay for the clean-up and redistribution of abandoned ones .
“ The £ 10 charge will allow us to avoid a large amount of the waste going to landfill ,” says Smith . “ We are working in partnership with a company that will turn the tents into a reusable product . The money will allow us to take the tent down , clean it and take it to somewhere where it can be transformed into a hammock , bag or a wallet .”
With Kendal Calling having been cancelled two years in a row , around 70 % of the ticket holders for the 2022 event have held their tickets over and so Smith says it would not be possible to introduce the initiative until new tickets go on sale for the 2023 event .
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