Leave No Trace - How to make it happen?

[giantkatestacks]

Its the people who have to leave at stupid o'clock on monday morning or very late sunday night usually. I think it was a lot better this year though. The pictures are bad but the Pyramid pick was much easier than normal and people were making more of an effort. 

[LostRiot]

 

I think it was in 2007.  It was one of the wettest, muddiest festivals of all time, so a lot of people just couldn't be bothered to pack up their stuff, and left in the belief that it would be donated to charity.  What wasn't made clear was that you were still supposed to pack your tent up and leave it in a designated area.

 

I think the festival has been paying the price for this ever since.

 

 

It was 100% 2007, because I remember I left my tent, which was pretty old and knackered, but still useable and water tight. We thought it would be donated to charity so I left it, got home and there was a news story about how tents could be donated to charity if they were packed up in bags and handed into the stewards tents.

 

I was pretty annoyed to be honest, as I 100% would have done that if I hadn't thought I just had to leave it there, and I really liked the tent, shame its now in a landfill!

 

This year our neighbours were planning on leaving their's 'to charity' until we told them that it was a bullshit rumour, so in the end they packed theirs up. 

 

I think a lot of people kind of want to believe its true so they can excuse leaving their tents, there is a degree of wilful ignorance, a quick google tells you that they don't get donated....

edit: This is the story, in 2007 they did donate the tents, but only if you took them to the right place.

 

http://www.24dash.com/news/environment/2007-06-18-abandoned-glastonbury-tents-to-shelter-street-children

Edited June 30, 2015 by LostRiot

[payneruk]

Sziget in Budapest do a collect a bag of litter to exchange for discount off of the festival T-shirt. Can't remember if it was 1 or 3 bags. Either way it was quite hard to do there due to the lack of people littering.

[D-Low]

Noticed a hell of a lot of Nitrous Oxide/laughing gas users too just chucking their empty canisters on to the ground. Quite a shame really.

Edited June 30, 2015 by D-Low

[Field Commander Jefferson]

It was 100% 2007, because I remember I left my tent, which was pretty old and knackered, but still useable and water tight. We thought it would be donated to charity so I left it, got home and there was a news story about how tents could be donated to charity if they were packed up in bags and handed into the stewards tents.

 

I was pretty annoyed to be honest, as I 100% would have done that if I hadn't thought I just had to leave it there, and I really liked the tent, shame its now in a landfill!

 

This year our neighbours were planning on leaving their's 'to charity' until we told them that it was a bullshit rumour, so in the end they packed theirs up. 

 

I think a lot of people kind of want to believe its true so they can excuse leaving their tents, there is a degree of wilful ignorance, a quick google tells you that they don't get donated....

edit: This is the story, in 2007 they did donate the tents, but only if you took them to the right place.

 

http://www.24dash.com/news/environment/2007-06-18-abandoned-glastonbury-tents-to-shelter-street-children

 

 

Thing is there are mixed messages, this is from last year where it did seem to happen on a very small scale

http://www.cornishman.co.uk/Abandoned-Glastonbury-tents-raise-charity-cash/story-21934279-detail/story.html

 

I agree though, people are using it as an excuse just to totally trash their area, leave rubbish all over the place and pretend to themselves that it's all justified by some kind of charity clean up operation,

[Gary]

When it's (been)muddy and your car is 2 miles away, tents, wellies and other cheap consumables become a pain in the arse to move and it's easier to leave them; rightly or wrongly. Stuff is heavy and after a long weekend you're tired... i completely understand the logic in leaving stuff and have been guilty in the past. These days, you'd be hard pressed to know we'd been there. 

 

Next year if i'm there with a car I am 100% waiting later and nabbing myself a couple of decent tents. They actually go for good money on eBay and i always wish I had an extra set of hands!

[greenchicken]

As I left via Pedestrian Gate A there was a small blackboard and a pile of camping stuff that said 'Leave unwanted camping gear to be donated to charity' so it seems it may happen on a small ad-hoc scale... hope they looked around as there was so much perfectly useable stuff left. I guess with a lot of people from overseas there, they buy tents etc when they arrive but can't take them home on flights.

[funksoulfever]

gotta admit i took my tent down and then threw it in the big area where all rubbish goes along wth my sleeping bag as they were broke this year. but id never just leave it up or in middle of the field. maybe im wrong to do this. but some people just leave it in an absolute heap with food cans beer cans tents and stuff everywhere nd those bloody nos canisters.

[rikkirascal]

I've been camping in Oxlyers since 2007 and it was a disgrace this year. It was a relatively young crowd there, but the mess they left behind was unreal. Think I'm gonna have to move to another area, where people treat the land better.

[Field Commander Jefferson]

Needs to be drummed home again, maybe in a different way, 'leave no trace' doesn't seem to get the job done unfortunately...

Need to get it to the level where people feel social pressure from those around them to not leave their site in a shit state, build it up that collectively we work together to keep it decent.

[rikkirascal]

I honestly think security or campsite stewards should just go round throughout the festival and ask the messy ones politely if they were gonna tidy up anytime soon.

[amfy]

Leaving Bushy Ground on Monday morning, it looked like everyone who had left ahead of us had cleared their space well.

We wondered whether it could possibly be as good as it looked. I suppose some of the tents which looked to be still occupied at 6.30am had maybe been abandoned, but overall - the general area just looked clear, without the usual plethora of rubbish tip campsites.

[ollllie]

Oxlyers was a mess when I left. I cleaned up my rubbish and some of our neighbours who we'd spent time with.

 

I only saw the campsite stewards once during the whole weekend so I think they need to show more of a presence, make regular patrols spreading the message and handing out bin bags. On Monday morning it looked like they were sitting on the tower ignoring what was going on around them.

[WS_Jack_III]

Just seen a shot of Henman hill/Murry mound and it didn't look much better than Glastonbury after a headliner has finished.

Taking into account the size difference of the crowd of course.

Edited July 3, 2015 by WS_Jack_III

[The 38 year old virgin]

I honestly think security or campsite stewards should just go round throughout the festival and ask the messy ones politely if they were gonna tidy up anytime soon.

This happened in darble, I think Saturday morning, couple of guys with bin bags, to be fair to my group, they got on and did it

[UK_Eduardo]

Might be hard to control but I think at the entrance of the fest people with tent should be given a different kind of wristband as responsibles of a tent. Then once they're off the ones with a tent-wristband should be leaving with a tent or not allowed to leave (or maybe to pay if they want to leave without the tent). 

Though, I find it hard since at the entrance there's not much control on the people access. 

[teamsofa]

Stayed in WV this year. Very surprised at the amount of shit left behind. Surely in a place where you leave the tent, taking your bedding / chairs / leftover food and booze ain't that hard.

A clear difference between folk who took everything away and hose who just fucked off without a second thought.

[rednick]

Our local firefighters (from Hayle in Cornwall) are usually invited to the site after the festival finishes to collect as many usable tents. They sell them at our local rugby club with proceeds going towards various charities.

[grumpyhack]

One green dilemma is encouraging people to travel to the fest using public transport - because it's less of an incentive to take stuff home.  People travelling by car have an easier time to take stuff away - even if a tent is broken you might feel more like taking it home for repair.

In the CV fields it's even easier to take stuff home so they tend to be pretty free of litter.

[Tyonks]

I think education is always the key, when I was a young whippersnapper going to my first Reading Festival I was weirdly fascinated by how spotless everything was when we arrived, then the gradual post-apocalyptic wasteland that formed thinking nothing of the damage it caused the environment. 

 

These days however i'm far more knowledgeable about the damage it causes particuarly at Glastonbury which is otherwise a living working farm. Suffice to say our camp site was spotless when we left this year (and in previous years). Shame we only occupied a small area! 

[Glastoboy]

Up in big ground someone came by to say we could leave packed tents, tinned food and any other 'useful' donations next to the lock up.

We had a group of 40 including the kids and didn't leave so much as a rizla. The group next to us left a 6man tent, three Mattresses, a paddling pool and 5 days of devastation behind them.

Bring back the green police I say.

[Peroni]

We were at the top part of wicket. Not family camping and we left no trace. It's not hard and we do every year. I'd love to be able to camp with like minded folks.

[mr gumby]

We were also in Wicket, like the OP, and I was very pleased on Monday morning to look out of our tent and see how clean it was. Even those leaving in the early hours had cleared everything. I took a few photos, too, but can't post them with my phone.

[Vanderlyle]

Camplight had put up little bins (just bin liners attached to sticks) around the tents. Although we shouldn't have to be treated like kids, that did seem to help and they were all used and the site fairly unmessy.

No.idea why people can't keep at least their campsites clean. I sort of understand mess at Pyramid - whilst not condoning it, if you've finished a beer 30 mins into a 90 minute gig you are likely to put it down and trample on it - but it seems.inexcusable to not just spend five mins tidying around your tent every morning.

[shoptildrop]

We were in dairy and tbh I thought more people packed their stuff up than the last 2 previous years so something must be working. ...

Although still a few s**t tips about and watched one group brake the poles on their tents for whatever reason before leaving them