Festival to be charged for sewage discharge breaches

[Dukeicon]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

As I've said above, it might not be a pissing-in-the-hedges issue, as it's not impossible for one or more of the new longdrop tanks to have had a leak.

From the WDP news article

"It is understood the charges relate to the numbers of people urinating into hedgerows, with the Environment Agency closely monitoring the pollution levels in the stream that flows through the Worthy Farm site."

http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Glastonbury-Festival-charged-court-breaching-poo/story-28377646-detail/story.html

Edited December 16, 2015 by Dukeicon

[hfuhruhurr]

A bit of education might work as well. A lot of people pissing in hedges make the excuse that "this is a farm, do the cows use urinals?" They also consider what they piss to be 99.9% water.
Telling people the difference and the damage might help?

[ghostdancer1]

16 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

I can't much disagree that at some places around the site the loos are further away than they might otherwise be in an ideal world, but I don't think that stands up as an excuse for an individual.

They're not a pleasant thing to be near to you for too long, so I can understand if there's any recluctance by the fest to introduce them in more-accessible places. They defo take the environmental considerations seriously..

 

i'm not saying it's an excuse, just giving the reasons why loads aren't arsed going to the actual toilets themselves. there'd be far less men pissing on the fences if there were urinals close-by rather than loads of areas with none.

[ghostdancer1]

13 minutes ago, giantkatestacks said:

Ghostdancer - this isnt aimed at you but I don't accept that you people just don't know where the toilets are - they just cant be arsed to take responsibility. Part of being an adult is actually noticing where you are and what you're doing.

 

Its not loads of 'people' going to the fence is it? its mostly loads of men - do women have a special magical built in detector for the nearest toilet? No, just having a bit more respect for themselves and their surroundings.

well yeah, obviously it's men because it's easy and more socially acceptable for them.

as for the not knowing where the toilets are, that is definitely the case for plenty of people. obviously at the end of the day it comes down to men not being arsed going to the closest proper ones, if there were way more urinals around then there'd be way less pissing on fences.

as I said, this was my first time at Glastonbury and I found the toilets situation pretty poor compared to most other festivals I've been to.

[ghostdancer1]

4 minutes ago, hfuhruhurr said:

A bit of education might work as well. A lot of people pissing in hedges make the excuse that "this is a farm, do the cows use urinals?" They also consider what they piss to be 99.9% water.
Telling people the difference and the damage might help?

there's warnings on the screens all weekend. when people are drunk at 2am and aren't arsed walking too far to find toilets, they're not going to be thinking about the warnings, especially people who are new to the festival and aren't aware of the situation like those of us on here. I knew before going, but none of the rest of my friends had any idea about it before they got there.

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, Dukeicon said:

From the WDP news article

"It is understood the charges relate to the numbers of people urinating into hedgerows, with the Environment Agency closely monitoring the pollution levels in the stream that flows through the Worthy Farm site."

Yeah, I'd seen that.

Them using "it is understood" should mean that info is accurate by normal journalistic practice, tho I've my own reason to think the problem might have been caused by something else.

I've no way of knowing which is right, so I'm keeping an open mind for the moment. The info will come out in the case, I guess.

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

If it is to do with pissing in the hedgerows I guess we might see a return of the Green Police next year

I thought about that and it did make me think that the festival has actually changed in tone and atmosphere - I'm honestly not sure the same sort of Green Police we used to have would be safe (for them) any more.

[giantkatestacks]

10 minutes ago, ghostdancer1 said:

well yeah, obviously it's men because it's easy and more socially acceptable for them.

as for the not knowing where the toilets are, that is definitely the case for plenty of people. obviously at the end of the day it comes down to men not being arsed going to the closest proper ones, if there were way more urinals around then there'd be way less pissing on fences.

as I said, this was my first time at Glastonbury and I found the toilets situation pretty poor compared to most other festivals I've been to.

But it isn't socially acceptable. Thats the point.

It isn't the lack of toilets that makes it happen - I think there were far less at Green Man this year and they were in weird places- it's the type of people. How do you reach people who think its socially acceptable to piss in a town centre on a Saturday night and therefore will do it at Glastonbury as well? 

I know I am being all ranty about it but it is completely unacceptable and we shouldn't make excuses for it - the people that do it are complete idiots.

 

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, DeanoL said:

I thought about that and it did make me think that the festival has actually changed in tone and atmosphere - I'm honestly not sure the same sort of Green Police we used to have would be safe (for them) any more.

In the main I'd say just their visible presence (not even necessarily at the time of desperately wanting that piss) was probably making a significant difference.

I thought they helped to hammer home the message that yes it does matter "just this once" so you very definitely shouldn't do it,

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, giantkatestacks said:

How do you reach people who think its socially acceptable to piss in a town centre on a Saturday night and therefore will do it at Glastonbury as well?

I think you're going a bit far with the comparisons there.

It's much closer to being out on a country walk and taking a piss against a hedge - and where (in that isolated instance) it really doesn't much matter in environmental consequences.

I'd say it's that second part which is the is the issue Glastonbury has to over-come, where people come to understand that at Glastonbury it does matter.

[ghostdancer1]

6 minutes ago, giantkatestacks said:

But it isn't socially acceptable. Thats the point.

It isn't the lack of toilets that makes it happen - I think there were far less at Green Man this year and they were in weird places- it's the type of people. How do you reach people who think its socially acceptable to piss in a town centre on a Saturday night and therefore will do it at Glastonbury as well? 

I know I am being all ranty about it but it is completely unacceptable and we shouldn't make excuses for it - the people that do it are complete idiots.

 

well loads of people do it and don't get called up on it, so it clearly is acceptable to loads of people.

if you don't think it's lack of toilets then i don't know what you think the cause/solution is. i've already outlined loads of places were there seems to be fuck all urinals and there were plenty of times i left my friends in dark crowds and was walking several minutes to go for a piss, so I'm sure plenty of people who decided to piss on fences just weren't arsed doing the same.

as for the town centre bit, loads of places have put urinals on high streets and they're used. without them people would be pissing in doorways. so there you go, provide more, people will use them.

 

i'm not really sure what solution you're offering otherwise.

Edited December 16, 2015 by ghostdancer1

[stuartbert two hats]

9 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I thought about that and it did make me think that the festival has actually changed in tone and atmosphere - I'm honestly not sure the same sort of Green Police we used to have would be safe (for them) any more.

I think they'd be perfectly safe.  The bigger issue is that the Green Police were actually run by Oxfam, not the festival , although you'd imagine that the festival could reinstate them directly if they wanted to.

 

[JoBalls]

25 minutes ago, ghostdancer1 said:

there's warnings on the screens all weekend. when people are drunk at 2am and aren't arsed walking too far to find toilets, they're not going to be thinking about the warnings, especially people who are new to the festival and aren't aware of the situation like those of us on here. I knew before going, but none of the rest of my friends had any idea about it before they got there.

I don't know if it's being arsed though... I would happily walk for 5 mins to get to a toilet if I knew that when I got there I wouldn't then have to queue up for 20 mins to use one. Sometimes when I am at the Pyramid I will walk to use the loos at Williams Green because it's quicker to walk there and back than to queue at the Pyramid.

Personally I think more toilets are needed in a lot of places around the site - I'd put in a big block of toilets on the right hand side of the Other Stage towards the Glade, increase the size of the block behind West Holts stage area, add a load of compost toilets around the outside of the long drops at Williams Green, and add another block of toilets near The Blues which could serve John Peel in the daytime and Silver Hayes at night.

I'd also add a hell of a lot more toilets in the naughty corner... I'd probably do away with all the toilets scattered here and there and go for a massive fairly central toilet area like they have in the nighttime area at Latitude. The only real exceptions should be the venues like Coppardollar where you have to queue to get in... They need to keep their loos!

 

Edited December 16, 2015 by JoBalls

[stuartbert two hats]

But it isn't socially acceptable. Thats the point.

It isn't the lack of toilets that makes it happen - I think there were far less at Green Man this year and they were in weird places- it's the type of people. How do you reach people who think its socially acceptable to piss in a town centre on a Saturday night and therefore will do it at Glastonbury as well? 

I know I am being all ranty about it but it is completely unacceptable and we shouldn't make excuses for it - the people that do it are complete idiots.

 

It's not about making excuses, it's about discussing measures that can help the issues.  They might be idiots, but simply calling them idiots and saying we shouldn't make excuses doesn't really get us anywhere.

[JoBalls]

I know it may sound a bit stupid but one thing that might actually help is if the festival started putting up posters to promote "bums on seats". If EVERYONE sat down then you wouldn't get the situation where probably about 40% of the cubicles are unusable because of blokes with bad aim and girls who squat and end up peeing everywhere.

[Pinhead]

17 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

I think they'd be perfectly safe.  The bigger issue is that the Green Police were actually run by Oxfam, not the festival , although you'd imagine that the festival could reinstate them directly if they wanted to.

 

You sure it was Oxfam that ran them? I thought it was a separate venture by a number of like minded persons, some of which went on to become Gaia's Guardians then Shakti Sings...

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, Pinhead said:

You sure it was Oxfam that ran them? I thought it was a separate venture by a number of like minded persons, some of which went on to become Gaia's Guardians then Shakti Sings...

Whoever ran them, I guess there was ultimately a cost to the festival for them, and they decided the money was better spent in another way (perhaps by having more toilets, even).

[giantkatestacks]

22 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

I think you're going a bit far with the comparisons there.

It's much closer to being out on a country walk and taking a piss against a hedge - and where (in that isolated instance) it really doesn't much matter in environmental consequences.

I'd say it's that second part which is the is the issue Glastonbury has to over-come, where people come to understand that at Glastonbury it does matter.

Come on now. If I had to draw a venn diagram of people who piss up the fences and ramblers it wouldnt have any overlap at all. 

People don't make decisions with their conscious brain when they're drunk clearly so the actual environmental message wont work on an individual level - only peer pressure will do it. 

[eFestivals]

6 minutes ago, giantkatestacks said:

Come on now. If I had to draw a venn diagram of people who piss up the fences and ramblers it wouldnt have any overlap at all. 

I was meaning the environment they're pissing in. It's more like a country walk (in their heads, at least) than a shopping centre, and that's why they'll piss where they shouldn't at Glastonbury but won't in a shopping centre.

 

6 minutes ago, giantkatestacks said:

People don't make decisions with their conscious brain when they're drunk clearly so the actual environmental message wont work on an individual level - only peer pressure will do it. 

It's a combination of different factors that'll work the best.

They'll accept and act on that peer pressure more readily if they better understand why they shouldn't be pissing where they shouldn't, and that it's about more than the fact of them simply pissing in a place which isn't a toilet.

But I agree it's a hard message to get across, and made all the harder because there's a bunch of new faces every year.

[stuartbert two hats]

2 hours ago, ghostdancer1 said:

this was my first year at Glasotnbury and I was quite surprised by the lack of urinals tbh. plenty of times there were lines and crushes to get into small areas with only room for about 10 people. i can remember at the ones at the back of WH about 50 people in a queue for 3 troughs that could take 3 people each. loads of people resorted to pissing in hedges.

i've been to other loads of other festivals where urinals were more accessible. numbers-wise, less obviously, but they never seemed to be busy or as small as the ones at Glastonbury.

for somewhere with the closeness to the water supply and such an emphasis on telling people not to piss on the ground, I thought they did a bad job of providing urinals tbh.

I wonder if the urinals could actually cause more of a problem as they're currently set up.  I've never seen so much pissing on the floor as inside a urinal.  All those knobheads pissing on the the side of the tarpaulin with the trough.  I'll never understand it.  They've actually queued, but then they piss on the floor anyway.  On a Saturday night, it's just continual.  

Perhaps replacing the urinals with (albeit slower moving) longdrops actually reduces the amount of urine going into the water.

Even better would be double sided urinals, so it's impossible to piss on the inside of the urinals without it being captured.

[stuartbert two hats]

27 minutes ago, JoBalls said:

I know it may sound a bit stupid but one thing that might actually help is if the festival started putting up posters to promote "bums on seats". If EVERYONE sat down then you wouldn't get the situation where probably about 40% of the cubicles are unusable because of blokes with bad aim and girls who squat and end up peeing everywhere.

I have to admit, it took me nearly the whole weekend in 2014 to finally realise that was the point of the longdrops with the fixed seats.  I felt I right knob when I realised that I didn't need to try (and fail) to aim really well.  Obvious I know, but I've been lifting the seats for so many years, it didn't occur to me to sit down to piss!

[sime]

All that people needing a piss need to do is look up. All the loos have big signs above them with Toilet written on them. I agree there should be more loos but I don't agree that they are hard to find.

[DeanoL]

Gaia's Guardians were there this year, they were going around the camp fields on Wednesday explaining to people why they shouldn't pee in the fields.

[mungo57]

They should put it in the ticket 'those that pee on the land and are caught doing so will be ejected from the festival' can't argue with that?

 

i remember when chic played and I had just sat to skin up (we were stage right same as the brothers bar) there were scores of people  weeing up against the fence, some women, and there was a girl walking along taking pictures of people doing it with a really bright flash - I could see them tooing and froing arguing but the girl wins in my eyes - it's not called for!

[Stretlow]

3 hours ago, ghostdancer1 said:

this was my first year at Glasotnbury and I was quite surprised by the lack of urinals tbh. plenty of times there were lines and crushes to get into small areas with only room for about 10 people. i can remember at the ones at the back of WH about 50 people in a queue for 3 troughs that could take 3 people each. loads of people resorted to pissing in hedges.

i've been to other loads of other festivals where urinals were more accessible. numbers-wise, less obviously, but they never seemed to be busy or as small as the ones at Glastonbury.

for somewhere with the closeness to the water supply and such an emphasis on telling people not to piss on the ground, I thought they did a bad job of providing urinals tbh.

Also my first time and didn't have any problems with toilets. Once I figured out where they were.

There were loads of people pissing up against that fence at the side of the other stage with toilets 50 feet from them....

I also when having a stroll round the site on Saturday came across the big machine that I was told monitors the chemical levels of the water in and around the festival...