5,000 tents discarded

[LondonTom]

And you don't understand how percentages work!

Someone said the license targets for landfill are percentage targets, not weight/volume. That means it doesn't matter how much stuff goes to landfill, as long as more stuff gets recycled.

So if Glastonbury has a target of 30% landfill, that means 70% of stuff recycled. The key here is that stuff taken home does not count as recycled. These targets only apply to waste. To put it another way, what if everything except one tent was removed from the site by punters? If we all took all our rubbish with us and back home with us?

Sounds great right?

But in that situation, if that one tent was sent to landfill, Glastonbury would be sending 100% waste to landfill, and would fail on the licensing rules.

But it would work the other way around, where people took home their tent home(landfil) and left more recyclable stuff at the fest (cans/cups etc.)...

[fred quimby]

Sounds great right?

But in that situation, if that one tent was sent to landfill, Glastonbury would be sending 100% waste to landfill, and would fail on the licensing rules.

Oh come on behave

[DeanoL]

But it would work the other way around, where people took home their tent home(landfil) and left more recyclable stuff at the fest (cans/cups etc.)...

Yeah definitely. But if you know the thing creating most waste is tents, then you're better off looking for a way to make tents recyclable, by getting (official, licensed, tracked) people in to collect and re-use them.

Again, not coming at this from a green perspective, I'm just arguing the "the stuff left behind is a risk to the festival as they have targets for percentage of waste sent to landfill" point of view.

Oh come on behave

Oh yeah sure, because local council's are known for their practical approach to targets and licensing not bureaucracy and mindless adherence to rules right?

[Waapster]

I think the "behave" comment might just relate to building an argument on a ludicrous example featuring one tent.

[fred quimby]

I think the "behave" comment might just relate to building an argument on a ludicrous example featuring one tent.

Bingo

[frostypaw]

And you don't understand how percentages work!

...

I appreciate my point is slightly more sophisticated than yours, so I don't need to shake you, but I can recommend some basic mathematics tutors for innumerate adults if you want? I know percentages are tough for people that didn't get taught them properly at school.

I got a walk-in offer from Cambridge to read maths. Went to Imperial instead. So if you want to get pissy let me put it simply - you are wrong.

So you might want to reconsider your argument.

To make it really simple imagine the festival was tiny. What's been left behind is a bagful of waste and a tent of equal mass.

That bagful gets sorted into recyclable and non-recyclable giving a certain% amount of both. Say 70% R 30% NON-R. If the tent is left behind it is non-recyclable so gets added to that - leaving you with massively more non-recyclable material hence a far lower %age gets recycled - in this case the tent is the same mass as the bag'o'crap so our new percentages are 65% NON-R and 35% R. Huge difference

I'm not even sure what argument you think you're making in much of your post - I think that might be why this is coming over so oddly when the thread's meant to be about the amount of tents/etc discarded. The %ages are worked out by weight btw, of course weight's a factor. Weight doesn't change as you crush waste, volume does.

Edited August 15, 2014 by frostypaw

[DeanoL]

If the tent is left behind it is non-recyclable

That's the assumption you and I disagree on.

[ICGenie]

That's the assumption you and I disagree on.

A tent cannot really be recycled. Reused yes, recycled no.

[Mr Splodge]

A tent cannot really be recycled. Reused yes, recycled no.

Seconded unless they bring back canvas tents with steel poles.

[Guest]

Ok - so if I hold a party in my garden and charge everyone a £1.00 entrance fee (after obtaining any necessary licences of course), if someone leaves a can of beer afterwards, who does that can belong to and if someone else at the party takes that can out of my garden, are they stealing?

Isn't this whole discussion about making people feel better about stealing items that don't belong to them. The whole 'Landfill' argument is just a whitewash to make the 'thieves' feel better about themselves.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Ommadawn

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

A tent cannot really be recycled. Reused yes, recycled no.

A tent cannot really be recycled. Reused yes, recycled no.

Not quite true. There's this crowd who re-cycle discarded tents from Glastonbury (see below). Bloody expensive wrapping mind.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/glastonbury/10095764/Glastonbury-tents-to-be-given-new-lease-of-life.html

[frostypaw]

Ok - so if I hold a party in my garden and charge everyone a £1.00 entrance fee (after obtaining any necessary licences of course), if someone leaves a can of beer afterwards, who does that can belong to and if someone else at the party takes that can out of my garden, are they stealing?

Isn't this whole discussion about making people feel better about stealing items that don't belong to them. The whole 'Landfill' argument is just a whitewash to make the 'thieves' feel better about themselves.

You seem to be failing to make the distinction between items that have been discarded and items that have been lost.

I don't think any of these people are getting everything to the car, loading up, driving halfway back to warrington before "SHITE! I forgot to clean, pack down, somehow get back into it's bag and carry to the car, and load the tent!! I really wanted that, how did I forget it while loading all my stuff out of it and skulking off?"

C'mon mate.

[Guest]

So it's ok to take stuff from a skip or a supermaket waste bin then? Those items have been discarded by the owners but it still illegal to take them without asking permission first. There's plenty of cases which have gone to Court which have resulted in a significant number of guilty verdicts.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

So it's ok to take stuff from a skip or a supermaket waste bin then? Those items have been discarded by the owners but it still illegal to take them without asking permission first. There's plenty of cases which have gone to Court which have resulted in a significant number of guilty verdicts.

Which is a shocking indictment on the law of the land, and highlights the stranglehold this oligopoly of supermarkets / c**ts have on our society. They may well be legally right but they are morally bankrupt.

[frostypaw]

Which is a shocking indictment on the law of the land, and highlights the stranglehold this oligopoly of supermarkets / c**ts have on our society. They may well be legally right but they are morally bankrupt.

bang the fuck on.

A sudden turn to utterly trusting the law of the land from Ommadawn once it agrees with the point he's making.

And besides it's people's property intentionally discarded on someone else's - no different to chucking rubbish out on the roadside - so rather different to own-waste-in-own-receptacle.

[Guest]

Which is a shocking indictment on the law of the land, and highlights the stranglehold this oligopoly of supermarkets / c**ts have on our society. They may well be legally right but they are morally bankrupt.

I agree completely but at present taking discarded stuff is in a lot of cases, theft. If you take a discarded tent from the Glastonbury site, you are either stealing from the original owner of the tent or Glastonbury Festivals itself.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

If you take a discarded tent from the Glastonbury site, you are either stealing from the original owner of the tent or Glastonbury Festivals itself.

I'd say this was a bit of a grey area. Theft is defined as the 'taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it'. Are the mindful tatters taking tents etc with the intent to deprive the owners of it? Those who have discarded tents etc at Glastonbury are not going to claim that that the equipment is still theirs. Bottom line is, they don't give a fuck what happens to their equipment once they have left it and gone home.

I can't see how it would be stealing from Glastonbury festival either, as they were never the owners of the equipment in the first place.

[stuartbert two hats]

So it's ok to take stuff from a skip or a supermaket waste bin then? Those items have been discarded by the owners but it still illegal to take them without asking permission first. There's plenty of cases which have gone to Court which have resulted in a significant number of guilty verdicts.

Morally? Of course it is!

[stuartbert two hats]

I agree completely but at present taking discarded stuff is in a lot of cases, theft. If you take a discarded tent from the Glastonbury site, you are either stealing from the original owner of the tent or Glastonbury Festivals itself.

But surely the question is, do either GFL or the fly tipper give a fuck?

[midnight]

My mind boggles.

I bet that most people posting in this thread have taken drugs (other than alcohol) at some point at a festival and therefore broken "The Law" anyway. But that's ok, isn't it? It seems completely pointless to me to go on about the technicalities of "stealing" from a skip just because it is legally possible to prosecute someone for it.

In 1995 (my first Glastonbury festival), I had my tent (and everything in it) stolen, on the Saturday (24th June, I am unlikely to forget that date until I'm properly old and grey). Now that is theft, and caused me lots of problems. But if someone took home a can of beer someone else had brought to my party in my garden, I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

There is a difference.

But the real problem, imo, is the practice of abandoning stuff, just because people are too lazy to pack it up (they could at least bring it to a collection point, couldn't they?). It is a bit sad that the reference to WOMAD punters clearing their campsites gets dismissed with with "oh, that's just a different crowd".

I don't buy the argument that the "Leave no trace" message isn't promoted enough, btw. I've never looked out for it, or paid particular attention to it, but I've stumbled across it several times at this year's festival despite being completely pre-occupied with very different things at the time. It is out there, but people chose to ignore it, because they think, for some weird reason (probably just because it suits them), that leaving all that stuff is ok - or at least no big deal.

I've no idea what more the organisers could do, other than allowing responsible tatting or a massive presence of stewards who enforce packing up (the latter is costly and not realistic, I know); I guess individuals could try to talk to their tent neighbours if they find them doing that sort of thing, but that is against the "mind your own business" spirit.

This really isn't about laws, it's about individual responsibility, or the lack of it, and disgusting behaviour.

[progue]

The problem with these 'tatters' and like others I prefer to call them thieves, is that they only appear to be able to consider the immediate impact of their actions, rather than consider how they affect other festival goers in a much wider context.

First and foremost, we are already aware of a number if schemes that are now in operation whereby tents in particular are being re-used or recycled for good causes. With this in mind, you are stealing from charities and organisations who have a formal arrangement with the festival to collect these items after the event has actually finished.

Secondly, you have absolutely no idea whatsoever whether or not the owner (i.e. the person who brought the tent to the festival) has actually left it, unless they themselves tell you so. All this rubbish about tents being left open or with other rubbish discarded around them could have happened as a result of a variety of circumstances prior to your arrival.

For example someone may have gone out for the Monday shopping and left their tent closed and another thief, could have opened the door. Someone nearby may have discarded their rubbish near to the tent when packing up etc..

Finally, your actions impact on other festival goers and in particular those who wish to stay and chill for the day on the Monday. Instead of being able to chill, these people feel pressured to get up earlier and remove their tent and belongings before the thieves descend en-masse in the name of 'tatting'.

At the end of the day it's just a convenient excuse to nick stuff.

[stuartbert two hats]

The problem with these 'tatters' and like others I prefer to call them thieves, is that they only appear to be able to consider the immediate impact of their actions, rather than consider how they affect other festival goers in a much wider context.

First and foremost, we are already aware of a number if schemes that are now in operation whereby tents in particular are being re-used or recycled for good causes. With this in mind, you are stealing from charities and organisations who have a formal arrangement with the festival to collect these items after the event has actually finished.

Secondly, you have absolutely no idea whatsoever whether or not the owner (i.e. the person who brought the tent to the festival) has actually left it, unless they themselves tell you so. All this rubbish about tents being left open or with other rubbish discarded around them could have happened as a result of a variety of circumstances prior to your arrival.

For example someone may have gone out for the Monday shopping and left their tent closed and another thief, could have opened the door. Someone nearby may have discarded their rubbish near to the tent when packing up etc..

Finally, your actions impact on other festival goers and in particular those who wish to stay and chill for the day on the Monday. Instead of being able to chill, these people feel pressured to get up earlier and remove their tent and belongings before the thieves descend en-masse in the name of 'tatting'.

At the end of the day it's just a convenient excuse to nick stuff.

Again, you're getting tatters and thieves mixed up.

[progue]

Again, you're getting tatters and thieves mixed up.

Sorry Stuart, but I think it is others who are getting themselves mixed up here. Just because people use a different name to describe something doesn't mean that it is any different.

'Tatting' is simply a made up name that attempts to put a nice flowery face on nicking other peoples stuf.

The only way to responsibly take items from the festival is to make formal arrangements with the festival organisers to remove items that are left after the event has actually finished.

It really is as simple as that and no amount of self-justification will change the facts.

[stuartbert two hats]

Sorry Stuart, but I think it is others who are getting themselves mixed up here. Just because people use a different name to describe something doesn't mean that it is any different.

'Tatting' is simply a made up name that attempts to put a nice flowery face on nicking other peoples stuf.

The only way to responsibly take items from the festival is to make formal arrangements with the festival organisers to remove items that are left after the event has actually finished.

It really is as simple as that and no amount of self-justification will change the facts.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

[LondonTom]

'Tatting' is simply a made up name that attempts to put a nice flowery face on nicking other peoples stuf.

.

Taking stuff that has been abondened by its owner Vs. Taking stuff that someone still owns?

See the difference?