5,000 tents discarded

[russycarps]

I think I've read all of this thread, but sorry if I've missed this already.

I feel that one reason people leave so much behind compared to many (most?) other festivals is the distance they have to carry it back to the car parks with a banging hangover. Plus the price that camping stuff etc can be bought for these days, and the volume of 'middle class', well off punters means people can afford to leave the stuff behind, so they do because it's easier for them. We're not talking about the majority of massively 'in tune with Glasto' folk that frequent these pages here, we're talking selfish, just here for the weekend types, who think the world owes them a living and that the £200+ entrance fee includes being cleaned up after and couldn't give a shit what happens to their mess.

Sad but true, and unless some radical measures are devised to combat this behaviour, unlikely to change anytime soon.

Spot on. These people know it's wrong, but couldn't give a fuck. They know the mess gets cleared up anyway so what difference does it make if they leave litter or not.

You cannot argue with that logic

[frostypaw]

At £16 each for a £3m cleanup operation the people leaving hundreds of pounds worth of kit probably consider it good value

[giantkatestacks]

To be fair, that's not even close to being the main reason. I'm not going to repeat what I've heard because I don't know how much of the story I have / don't have and there may be a court case pending, but the story coming from a few different directions suggests that litter wasn't the trigger - the imposition of the one way system surrounding the site probably played more of a part.

Fair enough, will wait to see what comes out of it.

And for whoever thinks that the tents get aent to emergency situations abroad, they dont, our type of tents are useless for that, when you see refugee camps in syria etc they dont look like Pennards do they. They use canvas tents.

[TomfromStroud]

Can someone explain to me how a dog got into the festival in the first place?!

I saw a cat in the festival on Sunday morning. It looked petrified!

[CCCheese]

Spot on. These people know it's wrong, but couldn't give a fuck. They know the mess gets cleared up anyway so what difference does it make if they leave litter or not.

You cannot argue with that logic

which also applies to crew as people have said.

Oxfam stewards are not special, they don't (in my experience) necessarily share the Oxfam values, it's just an easy/cheap way to get in...

[Leggins]

Walking out from gate C through the East CV fields to the car parks, I was kind of surprised at what a mess some of the CV lot had left. In some cases there were mounds of stuff including chairs and clothes and wellies left where a CV pitch used to be. Absolutely no excuse for that.

[musky]

Fair enough, will wait to see what comes out of it.

And for whoever thinks that the tents get aent to emergency situations abroad, they dont, our type of tents are useless for that, when you see refugee camps in syria etc they dont look like Pennards do they. They use canvas tents.

Spot on. This has been stated many times but it's still widely believed that the tents end up being shipped out to the latest refugee crisis. The campsite stewards often do accept used camping equipment (of all sorts) but this is usually just sold to raise funds for their charity.

[eoJ]

are you doing guilfest this year? it'd be good to have a pint with someone with as optimistic and with much to say as yourself, even if we do often disagree! besides in real life we'd both have to draw breath now and then, might help us keep it shorter

I was thinking about it, but lineup looks a bit poor, and http://www.efestivals.co.uk/forums/topic/165470-assault-by-security-staff/ left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't suppose you're doing TFTSNBNBSSSDA are you? (The Festival That Shall Not Be Named But Some Spoil Sport Did Anyway ) Would love to, and that's true! (no sarcasm, despite that emoticon apparently being sarcastic)

[frostypaw]

I was thinking about it, but lineup looks a bit poor, and http://www.efestivals.co.uk/forums/topic/165470-assault-by-security-staff/ left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't suppose you're doing TFTSNBNBSSSDA are you? (The Festival That Shall Not Be Named But Some Spoil Sport Did Anyway ) Would love to, and that's true! (no sarcasm, despite that emoticon apparently being sarcastic)

I am not sadly, BoomTown has my monies this year - will do t'other next year i think as I've meant to for a while and my finances are more sane now

shame mate that sucks on the security issue - Neil reported that they're trying to sort it out and take a lighter touch approach this year so hopefully it's been sorted out. fingers crossed. the lineup is a bit old school but all fun stuff, after glasto I see it as an excuse to sit down a lot more! only a stumble back home too. Might be closer than my glasto camping spot bizarre.

[progue]

I'd be interested to know what Boom Time is like...Might take a look next year.

[eoJ]

I am not sadly, BoomTown has my monies this year - will do t'other next year i think as I've meant to for a while and my finances are more sane now

shame mate that sucks on the security issue - Neil reported that they're trying to sort it out and take a lighter touch approach this year so hopefully it's been sorted out. fingers crossed. the lineup is a bit old school but all fun stuff, after glasto I see it as an excuse to sit down a lot more! only a stumble back home too. Might be closer than my glasto camping spot bizarre.

Ah, that's a shame, although BoomTown was the other one I was considering, and it seems tickets are still available, so I'll see - haven't actually brought up the unnamed festival with friends yet (or got tickets), and Hampshire might be easier for them to get to. If I don't see you this year though, I'll definitely try to make it to next year's efests Glastonbury meet.

Yeah, I think my argumentative nature and knowing the law on that kind of thing a bit better than most probably didn't help much, along with being used to that kind of thing after being expelled from school years ago for things *ahem* we won't go into

I hope that's the case, although the fact that Tony Scott seems a bit of a prick himself (rolled my eyes when I saw him complaining that Guildford had let the park be used for a concert, after they'd made an official statement that Guilfest was to be no more). Lineup on main stages looks decent, and the comedy tent is always a laugh, but the dance tent was always my refuge when there was nothing else on, and this year I can't say I recognise a single name, with a lot of house & D&B, neither of which I'm particularly keen on. The sitting down is definitely great though!

Yeah, the proximity of everything is deinitely a major plus for Guilfest, although I'm not the biggest fan of the campsite and arena being separated. Have you ever bought tickets off a tout there? They always seem to be there, and their tickets always seem to be a fair bit cheaper than the festival's prices, picking up a ticket when I'm there has been something I've always considered.

[frostypaw]

Not actually been... only moved here shortly before '12 and that became obviously muddy and couldn't face it after months of working outdoors in the mud by that point. bad year all round! Looks better this year *touchwood*

sometimes it's better to be quiet and submit, rules and laws never controlled anyone, only their own will and sadly that's lacking in a lot of folk.

Their campsites were a tip too that year, but mud blah. would have been interesting to see how many more tents would have been taken if this year had been dry - many of the big ones i saw left were utterly filthy inside as folk had wandered into the porches with muddy boots.

How many get left at the repeated mudfest that is the Green Man?

[eoJ]

Not actually been... only moved here shortly before '12 and that became obviously muddy and couldn't face it after months of working outdoors in the mud by that point. bad year all round! Looks better this year *touchwood*

sometimes it's better to be quiet and submit, rules and laws never controlled anyone, only their own will and sadly that's lacking in a lot of folk.

Their campsites were a tip too that year, but mud blah. would have been interesting to see how many more tents would have been taken if this year had been dry - many of the big ones i saw left were utterly filthy inside as folk had wandered into the porches with muddy boots.

How many get left at the repeated mudfest that is the Green Man?

Ah, fair enough. Yeah, the last year definitely wasn't a good one.

True, although it depends, often they've already decided what they're going to do, and any questioning is just to weasel out extra info. If they had got the police as I was asking, I think it could've ended OK (or at least better than it did). It was Sunday afternoon though, so I thought it was worth a shot, and I'd already got the impression that had I not done anything, it would've ended the same way (admittedly, minus several big blokes pinning a non-violent skinny guy to a table and radioing for backup )

Edited July 6, 2014 by eoJ

[Oracles]

Hello there,

I have just got home from the festival site, I am a bin man during the festival and clear the fields of bin bags once the first wave of litter pickers have been through after the festival. I have worked the festival since 09. The last two festivals have been cleaned up really quick to be fair but that has less to do with people leaving things behind and more to do with the weather. 2011, it hammered it down on the Monday morning and 30,000 tents were left standing along with myriad other festival detritus (rich pickings for the tatters amongst us). This year and last were hot and dry on the Monday. We nailed it this year. We work in a team of 5 to a bin wagon and our team systematically dealt with the fields we were allocated filling the bin wagons quicker than they could empty them. Our team of 5 alone put at least 15-20 tons of tents and camping gear into the wagons and there are many teams. For all those who think tents go to charity I am sorry to burst your bubble but if they are not tatted then the are dragged into the lorry with the compactor and taken to landfill, along with every thing else once the journalists and photographers from the Guardian and BBC have left site.

A few of us were talking about documenting the things we see and making an amateur documentary about an often un thought of aspects of working the festival, It would be a real eye opener, for sure!

Regards

[H.M.V]

Hello there,

I have just got home from the festival site, I am a bin man during the festival and clear the fields of bin bags once the first wave of litter pickers have been through after the festival. I have worked the festival since 09. The last two festivals have been cleaned up really quick to be fair but that has less to do with people leaving things behind and more to do with the weather. 2011, it hammered it down on the Monday morning and 30,000 tents were left standing along with myriad other festival detritus (rich pickings for the tatters amongst us). This year and last were hot and dry on the Monday. We nailed it this year. We work in a team of 5 to a bin wagon and our team systematically dealt with the fields we were allocated filling the bin wagons quicker than they could empty them. Our team of 5 alone put at least 15-20 tons of tents and camping gear into the wagons and there are many teams. For all those who think tents go to charity I am sorry to burst your bubble but if they are not tatted then the are dragged into the lorry with the compactor and taken to landfill, along with every thing else once the journalists and photographers from the Guardian and BBC have left site.

A few of us were talking about documenting the things we see and making an amateur documentary about an often un thought of aspects of working the festival, It would be a real eye opener, for sure!

Regards

That doc sounds like a fricking awesome idea! If for no other reason but to educate people about cleaning up after themselves.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Hello there,

I have just got home from the festival site, I am a bin man during the festival and clear the fields of bin bags once the first wave of litter pickers have been through after the festival. I have worked the festival since 09. The last two festivals have been cleaned up really quick to be fair but that has less to do with people leaving things behind and more to do with the weather. 2011, it hammered it down on the Monday morning and 30,000 tents were left standing along with myriad other festival detritus (rich pickings for the tatters amongst us). This year and last were hot and dry on the Monday. We nailed it this year. We work in a team of 5 to a bin wagon and our team systematically dealt with the fields we were allocated filling the bin wagons quicker than they could empty them. Our team of 5 alone put at least 15-20 tons of tents and camping gear into the wagons and there are many teams. For all those who think tents go to charity I am sorry to burst your bubble but if they are not tatted then the are dragged into the lorry with the compactor and taken to landfill, along with every thing else once the journalists and photographers from the Guardian and BBC have left site.

A few of us were talking about documenting the things we see and making an amateur documentary about an often un thought of aspects of working the festival, It would be a real eye opener, for sure!

Regards

I know it's slightly off topic but I was wondering if you'd tell us what your best find has been over the years?

On the documentary front it sounds like a fantastic idea. The only problem watching it would be seeing all that lovely kit go into the lorries to be compacted and put in landfill. I can't be the only one who gets the horn looking at camping equipment. I had wanted to go tatting this year for the first time, but had promised someone a lift back to Birmingham early in the morning so couldn't do it. I can't believe that I could have taken my pick from 5000 tents.

[giantkatestacks]

Walking back to the coach station we saw an awesome huge tent with a central section and three bedrooms just abandoned. It really is unbelievable that people would leave it. I wanted a chair to sit in the bus station queue with but husband gave me the look of death when I suggested it as he was already carrying everything else.

What would have been good would be if some enterprising person put the spare gazebos we walked past up in the national express queue area seeing as we were sat in the broiling sun for hours.

[Oracles]

I know it's slightly off topic but I was wondering if you'd tell us what your best find has been over the years?

On the documentary front it sounds like a fantastic idea. The only problem watching it would be seeing all that lovely kit go into the lorries to be compacted and put in landfill. I can't be the only one who gets the horn looking at camping equipment. I had wanted to go tatting this year for the first time, but had promised someone a lift back to Birmingham early in the morning so couldn't do it. I can't believe that I could have taken my pick from 5000 tents.

[Oracles]

Some of us tatters from the crew used to gather up tents to clean up and sell on eBay or at boot sales. Not worth it now as new tents are so cheap. My best find this year was a mint condition army issue gore tec bivvy bag. It really beggars belief and us lot are hardened Wombles having spent many hours on Tat Monday gathering items that folks leave behind.

There are rules we go by, don't tat stuff that obviously still belongs to people cos that is theft and you rightly deserve to be dealt with, by the police or indeed the owner!

The last couple of yrs the police have been coming down overly harsh on people tatting and arresting them for theft by finding, even for picking up an obviously discarded fosters!

We had to change tactics and with tat trollies in hand went around asking folks as they were packing if we could help lighten their loads a free alcohol removal service! We got a lot of laughs with the punters and the security were left scratching their heads cos they can't do anything if the beer is being freely given to a good cause I.e the workers after party.

[Oracles]

I apologize for not using quotes properly as I have always been more of a lurker than a poster.

Us guys from the bins are sick to the eyeballs with tents, they are somewhat of a nightmare to get in the back of a wagon what with all the poles waving around and once the compactor gets going it can be down right lethal! It would make amazing, if not a little heartbreaking, footage to see these huge tents, often tied together with extra tarps, going into the back of the wagon. We have a team of mates who all know the job and the site inside out so we have our methods of dealing with even the largest tents and as I stated earlier, we nailed it this year. I might even dare say, whilst the others arn't around, that we had a great deal of fun working in the fields finding all sorts of goodies along the way. The hardest part wasn't the physical labour but the relentless baking heat. Had to keep on at the bosses to make sure our wagon had plenty of water, we made sure it had planty of tatted beer and the occasional nice smoke. Got us through the working day anyhow.

Regards.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

The last couple of yrs the police have been coming down overly harsh on people tatting and arresting them for theft by finding, even for picking up an obviously discarded fosters!

Thanks for responding Oracles. It seems that there's some room for you and the police to discuss finding a way forward on this. There shouldn't be no tatting at all and a 100% waste into landfill policy adopted. That approach hardly has green credentials.

[Oracles]

Yeah for sure. As we see the messy process through I have often wondered about how it could be done but even with an army of good natured types volunteering to sort through the whowl mucky twisted lot I have yet to see how it could be made possible. I get especially hacked off when I spot what initially appears to be a gem of a tent, only to find that the occupants decided to somehow defecate all over the interior before vacating! It's just wrong and as we try our best to guide our 30 ton bin wagons through the throng of the the crowds, I find myself looking at faces and wondering, just who is it amongst you that feels the need to ruin what could be a prized possession to one of the travellers who make up the core of the recycling crew, although they are getting thinner on the ground now.

[Spindles]

Quality insight, Oracles, cheers That documentary would be well worth making.

[Oracles]

Just don't get me started on the food waste, I mean tinned foods going to the landfill! I gather as much as I can transport home to save on food bills over the winter as do many others. I feel absolutely no shame at all in picking an unopened multi pack of brand name beans onto my tat trolly or indeed any other undamaged tins.

For years we have said that the local homeless in the area could be fed and clothed with the stuff we're told to chuck, all in the cause of saving a few pennies by getting the clean up done in record time or some other such spurious excuse.

Around our camp, after Tat Monday is over, piles of food, clothing, alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks alike start to appear as us Wombles sort through the days pickings and having gleaned the choicest tat for ourselves we donate the rest to the tat piles around camp for all to come and take what they want so those who were unfortunate enough to pull a shift on the Monday morn dont lose out too much.

If I ever find anything like Phones and such, they go to lost property as I lost my phone the first year I was there and my Mam and Dad got a call in August to get an address to send my found phone to, so now i make sure any found phones or ipads, laptops etc get to lost property. Has to be good Karma?

[waynewdk]

walked through Pyramid at about 7.30am on the Sunday morn on the way to the showers. There were about 40-50 volanteers all litter picking around the tv box, with a guy co-ordinating them by mega phone.