As those of you who have registered for Glastonbury Festival 2008 which takes place at Worthy Farm, Pilton over the weekend of Friday 27th to Sunday 29th June have seen, there's an important message for this year's Festival goers upon completion of the process. This year Glastonbury Festival wants us all to reduce, reuse and recycle more.
"As you start to plan for this year's Glastonbury, think about this:
20,000 tents, tonnes of camping gear, wet clothes and muddy wellies, enough gazebos to have their own festival, an army of broken fold up chairs, disposable barbecues, umbrellas, and twisted golfcarts.
All this and more got dumped on Worthy Farm in 2008.
This year we want festival-goers to work with us to Love the farm, Leave no Trace.
Travel light, only bring what you're willing to carry home. when you buy your tent and camping gear, don't buy the cheapest, get something you'll want to keep. when it's time to go, pack up your stuff and take it away.
Help Glastonbury reduce its environmental footprint in 2008."
The BBC have released early information on their news page (here) about one of the early initiatives in a range of measures to be properly announced in March. The will be aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the festival under the slogan "leave no trace" and appealing to Festival goers to stop making a mess.
The article says that the Festival will provide campers with tent pegs made out of potatoes for them to use instead of metal ones. Festival organisers confirmed that they had put research into a strong biodegradable peg made of potato starch, but we don't think they are edible if you get the munchies.
The organisers have confirmed that they are currently intending to hand out these pegs at all the entry points. Each person with a tent will receive around 10 of the 'potato pegs', which means around a million pegs will be handed out!
After last year's festival a skip was filled full of tent pegs, that have to be removed from the ground for the safety of the cows. Mr Eavis told BBC News that they are "a real problem for the cows." He went on to add, "We're going to buy a biodegradable tent peg this year, but it is very stout actually. They use it in the turf industry and we've just discovered it. So we're going to force people to use the tent pegs and not use the wire ones. Potato starch, they're actually made from."
The biodegradable pegs were selected from various prototypes the organisers have tested and are very strong when first used, but if left in the fields will break down over subsequent months.
The organisers are also appealing to Festival goers to travel light in 2008 and make sure they take everything home with them. They also hope that any people thinking of taking gazebos reconsider - Glastonbury is not the kind of environment for the fragile structures and most of them usually end up broken and dumped at the end of the festival.
There will be more information on Glastonbury Festivals's 'Love the farm and leave no trace!' initiatives in March when those who have registered and are eligible to try for tickets on ticket day, Sunday 6th April, will be reminded that in 2008 everyone must make an effort to reduce, reuse and recycle and reduce the Festival's environmental footprint. The organisers can't make this happen - it's up to Festival goers to 'leave no trace' themselves.
Online registration for those wanting tickets to the 2008 Festival is now open and can be done here.
Don't forget to keep an eye on our Glastonbury 2008 rumours - there's no better place to find out who's likely to play.
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