Are you planning to attend a music festival during the year or have you already secured your ticket for the next one? Camping at festivals provides a unique, in-depth experience. Festival campgrounds are frequently given whimsical names and adorned with paper lanterns. Connections are forged as people wait their turn for the showers, and simple trades of toothpaste and toilet paper can turn fellow campers into friends.
However, the story changes on the last day. When the music ceases, floodlights illuminate, and attendees begin to exit, often leaving behind a field littered with forgotten tents, sleeping pads, and fold out-chairs… a reflection of the aftermath of some bourgeoisie doomsday.
When it comes to recycling, it gets complicated
Exact numbers for tents discarded at Irish music festivals are unknown. However, the environmental charity Wrap reports that over 250,000 tents are left behind at UK music festivals each year.
The environmental impact of abandoned tents is quite alarming. Wrap states that a standard four-person tent weighing 4.8kg can contain the equivalent amount of plastic as close to 9,000 plastic straws, 200 (500ml) plastic bottles, or 22 Coldplay vinyl records. You may refrain from using plastic water bottles and straws throughout the year, but leaving your tent behind at a music festival can easily erase your previous green efforts.
“Tents symbolise a huge recycling challenge. Unfortunately, many left-behind tents are either incinerated or dumped in landfills if they can’t be reused or donated,” notes Wrap.
The search for a solution
Camping tends to be an annual festival occurrence for many. It is common for thousands of individuals to purchase an inexpensive tent, only to abandon it after three nights. The predicament was noticed by UK retailer Decathlon, who launched a “No Tent Left Behind” campaign.
The majority of abandoned festival tents find their way into landfill sites, Decathlon concurs. The company’s campaign, endorsed by Jo Whiley, a BBC Glastonbury coverage presenter, seeks to diminish this waste.
If someone purchases a festival tent at the store, they can utilise it for the festival and then return it to receive a gift card equivalent to the tent’s cost. Through Decathlon’s Second Life programme, these returned tents are revived, cleaned, and resold, expanding their useful life and decreasing single-use purchases.
However, Irish festival fans can’t avail of this opportunity as the initiative doesn’t exist in Ireland.
Avoid buying one-time use tents.
The largest music festival in Ireland, Electric Picnic, has expanded its capacity to 75,000 attendees this year, an increase from last year’s 70,000. The festival organisers have urged festival goers to avoid adding to the waste problem by investing in a durable, reusable tent, rather than buying disposable ones.
Unused tents that are in a good condition can be donated to local charity shops such as St Vincent de Paul stores after the festival, rather than being discarded and burned, as will be the fate of discarded tents, says Electric Picnic. Dublin’s Sean McDermott Street branch of the charity shop, for instance, not only resells used tents, but also provides them at no cost to individuals sleeping rough.
The environmental organisation, Voice, has however directed the blame for the waste issue at festivals back to the festival organisers, urging them to take greater responsibility in waste management.
Certain festivals now offer eco-friendly campsites, with pre-set tents for their attendees. Pink Moon, providing these pre-set tents at Electric Picnic and the All Together Now festival, claims it to be the eco-friendlier choice and easier to clean. These tents are marketed as being fabricated from recycled material and designed with the intent of being reused, repurposed across other festivals if they remain undamaged.
However, the “greener” alternatives come at a price ranging from €299 for a two-person tent to €985 for a tent designed to accommodate six people. This may prove to be too expensive for some festival goers as a rudimentary camping tent can be purchased for as little as €30.
An even cheaper and eco-friendlier option may be to borrow a tent. Purchased tents can be kept in good condition for long term use, lent to peers or even donated to encourage their reuse.