How to be More Sustainable at Festivals this Summer

 by Ellie Jeynes

Image by John Cameron

According to a report by Creative Carbon Scotland, U.K. festival-goers create the equivalent of over 2.7kg of waste per person per day. Attendees of these festivals often assume that everything they leave behind will be recycled; however, that isn’t always the case. With tickets to the majority of this summer’s festivals already sold out it is helpful to be aware of how you can do your little bit to help the planet in the upcoming festival season. 

Refillable water bottles sound like an obvious suggestion but hundreds of thousands are left in fields post- festivals. Glastonbury became the first festival to ban the sale of single-use plastic bottles in 2019 as they became more aware of the dreadful impact their festival was having on the environment. In 2017 alone Glastonbury sold more than a million plastic water bottles the majority of which were not recycled as U.K. festivals’ recycling rates are typically below 32%.The majority of festivals in 2022 have drinking water taps on their site that people are able to refill their water from. Just by taking a reusable water bottle you can help stop millions of bottles ending up in landfill or in the ocean where they can cause a significant amount of damage. 

Another easy way to help the planet is by getting to the festival in a more environmentally friendly way. If you have a car, sharing lifts with others is a great way to travel greener and spend good quality time with your friends. Public transport is also widely available in terms of festival transport. 40% of Glastonbury festival-goers arrive by public transport like the Big Green Coach. Big Green Coach pledges to sponsor five square feet of Amazonian Rainforest for 10 years for every person who travels with them. A coach cuts out 20 cars’ worth of emissions which quickly adds up to a much more sustainable way to travel. 

When people complain about the impact of festivals on the planet it’s usually to do with tents. 250,000 tents get left behind in U.K. fields each year from Reading to Boardmasters and Glastonbury. Each tent is equivalent to 8750 straws or 250 plastic pint cups. They’re not always sent to charities but instead are dumped in landfill. The “festival tent” business is huge as retailers create poorly made tents that can be discarded four days later. Most of these tents are probably not resistant to English rain anyway so by borrowing a friend or family member’s tent you will probably be better in the long run. 

Finally if you are able to be more minimal, Glastonbury says that if every attendee uses four paper napkins instead of one, 450,000 napkins get wasted. By stopping to think about what you actually do need you can help the planet. Not every day of a festival requires a new outfit, charity shops are great for festival tipions and eco glitter is able to biodegrade. By avoiding fast fashion outfits and plastic face gems that you will most likely wear once your bank account on footprint will be happier. All of these changes are fairly simple and although they sound obvious if everyone actually took them up there would be so much less waste at festivals. Although big festivals like Boardmasters and Glastonbury are trying their best to help the planet by making larger gestures as a festival goer you can help to reduce the impact they have on the planet. A lot of these changes would also help those involved benefit economically as well by saving money on items that they can re use. Pre COVID every year 3.17 million people attend music festivals up and down the length of Britain. If each person was able to make some smaller changes the planet would be much happier.