Litter pickers are once again having to pick up thousands of tonnes of waste that have been left by festival-goers at Glastonbury.
The Glastonbury festival has been going since 1970, and it has certainly increased in popularity over the years. Set on the 900-acre dairy farm in South West England, Worthy Farm has seen the best of the best performing for over 40 years.
However, with hundreds of thousands of visitors turning up to watch their favorite musicians year after year, the land has been through a lot. And one thing that has become increasingly more prevalent over the years is the mass amount of trash left by customers after the 5-day festival.
However, this year, Glastonbury tried a new approach to prevent customers from leaving so much waste on the farm, asking them to take everything with them when they leave. The 200,000 festival-goers were asked to sign a ‘Love the Farm, Leave no Trace’ pledge when buying their tickets.
The terms and conditions outlined in the pledge featured 5 main rules that customers were asked to abide by, to keep the land in the same shape as before the festival.
It read: “I will take all my belongings home with me, inc. my tent and camping equipment. I will use the bins provided and not throw my rubbish on the ground.
It continued: “I will bag up all my rubbish using the bin bags provided and use the recycling pens. I will use the toilets provided and will not pee on the land. I will try to use a reusable water bottle and avoid single-use packaging.”
Organizer Emily Eavis also urged people to take their trash away with them in a post on Twitter after the event, writing: “Thank you for making this such a special @Glastonbury. If you’re starting to think about packing up, then PLEASE take everything home with you. Let’s leave this beautiful valley in the state that it deserves. Enjoy the rest of the Festival!”
Sadly, it seems despite the efforts made to ensure people would leave the farm as they found it, people just didn’t adhere to the rules. And once again, hundreds of volunteers were left to clean up the mess each day following the festival.
According to BBC News, 2,000 tonnes of trash have been picked up from the site over the 5-day period, not dissimilar to the previous years. Volunteer, Sean Kelly, shared he had been working for hours every day to clean the site.
“In the whole recycling team there is 2,500 of us and I’ve done it 10 years on the trot. It’s very similar to 2019 because it is dry, it is a lot easier to pick when it is dry. As a rule, everything is pretty much done early this year.
“There’s been a huge reduction in gas canisters this year, but there’s been a lot of vape bars and they are the only things you can’t recycle. Most things get recycled here.”