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The solution to abandoned tents & waste?


Jack_FM
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In short: nah. I researched and chose my tent for an absolute myriad of reasons. It’s a fresh n black, it’s inflatable so I can very easily pop it up myself, it’s got a massive porch under which I can sit in a camping chair without my head hitting the canvas, it’s long enough for me to kip in (I’m tall and sleep outstretched) and theres room in the bedroom for beds and stuff, quite easily. It is perfect. Every square inch is utilised. 
stick me in any other kind of tent and I would have a massive gripe with something. 
 

the logistics and carbon footprint of potentially sending you my tent and then you erecting it for me is daft, but that would be the only way I’d be interested in this scheme or similar. 

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6 hours ago, HotChipWillBreakYourLegs said:

OP - are you the guy who went on Dragons Den with this idea? 

I love my tent and take it home with me every year so wouldn't use this service. 

How would allocation work?  Get what you're given?  Or like picking seats on Ryanair? 

I was thinking the dragons den thing as well. If I recollect it was dismissed out of hand and no one invested. Didn’t they put it up and at the end you took it to them and they stored it? Cant quite remember how it worked 

Everyone has a different idea what they want from their tent, space if you’ve kids, a simple tunnel if all you do is crash out at four in the morning, if you’re on your own does that mean a field of smaller singles tents? Even this year we are looking at a tent with more head room due to back problems. 

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Education and peer pressure are the tools to solve this.

But, not to be negative... one baby step in your direction could be bookable plots - you take your own tent, you've reserved your spot. Make this available for Thursday afternoon arrivals only . You know who is in what spot - they get to take their tent home. Might also ease the daftness that is now the Weds morning crush to get in. Bookable spot = obligation to take tent home. Expand scheme if it's all lovely and works.

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I can't quite put my finger on it but I think my initial reaction to this idea is immense distaste at the feeling of being, I don't know, babied? As though "you're not responsible enough to do the right thing, so here's a nice organised pen to hold you in". I know that's a bit dramatic, but that's just my gut reaction. 

Also, I say this as someone who does not enjoy camping in any other situation - I don't camp for fun, I camp at Glastonbury and I only love it (and everything that comes with it) because it's Glastonbury. The suggested solution would undoubtedly detract from a very important part of the 'Glastonbury experience' and I certainly would not be in favour of that.

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Considering the immense effort and progress we are well on the way to solving this problem anyway so not much of a problem to solve at Glastonbury. Other festivals maybe still need help in one form or another.

Im out.

Edited by morph100
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A business dressed up as a 'new' solution by a new forum member was inevitably going to get shot down in flames on here.

The thread makes depressing reading for me though.  The thing that originally set Glastonbury apart was its radicalism - not only in terms of the causes it championed, but also in the inventive way it set up its own infrastructure to support and entertain so many people, whilst (at least pretending to be) putting two fingers up to the capitalist model of doing business.  Most of us appreciate that plastic waste is one of humanity's major problems and anyone who thinks Glastonbury isn't still an annual environmental disaster has their head in the sand.  Going down the 100% non-plastic, pre-pitched route would set an example to the world and be the most 'Glastonbury' thing the festival had ever done.  And if the festival itself managed the project in the same innovative way they manage the internal markets, bin-painting and composting toilets etc, it would definitely not result in a monotone concentration camp.

No need to worry about this ever happening though - Eavis was no more sincere in his 100% pre-pitched comments than he was in his hints at moving festival location.  He's just a wily fox when it comes to PR...  I still find it depressing that we put the shutters down to a radical solution like this because the move from individualism/consumerism to a managed/cooperative approach threatens to push us out of our comfort zone.

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I'm interested in the logistics, especially if the whole festival was pre-pitched. The OP talks about ensuring groups of friends are kept together, but if everyone wanted to be in Pennard Hill, or Big Ground, how would this work in practice?

Would it be another bunfight (admittedly only amongst ticket holders) where people try to get the campsite they want in an onsale? Or would you have less choice over where you go, and instead be allocated an area? It seems to me the latter is the only way you could ensure groups were camped together?

If Phase 1 is a dedicated area with pre-pitched tents inside the fence, and cost £20pp on top of your ticket, I'm gonna suggest it would sell out very quickly, even if members of this forum wouldn't be the ones buying it.

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Sorry, Jack_FM, you seem to be receiving a lot of negativity here. Don't take it to heart, it's not personal...

That being said, it's a no from me also...

1. I honestly think it can't be done for £20. Considering you'd have to buy the tents, and pay someone to pitch them, strike them, clean them and store them in between festivals, you begin to see why the other glamping operations charge so much.

2. The kind of person who abandons camping equipment at a festival (aka an asshole) is not going to care a jot about this.

3. I want to camp with my friends, so we would need to be all in for this to work, and you then get into a logistical nightmare of assigning tents to large groups etc.

4. I love my tent.

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11 hours ago, Ayrshire Chris said:

The incredible mosaic of colours, shapes and sizes of the tents that carpet the valley during festival week is a breath taking spectacle.  Would hate to see that replaced with row upon row of identical tents.  It’s also an experience wandering about the site seeing everyone doing their own thing.  pre erected for everyone? I can’t see it.  There’s a place for worthy view and a mix of own tents and pre erected tents is best. 

Here endeth the lesson, kids 

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A big problem I can foresee is if it's all pre-made tents inevitably there will be different prices for location, type and size etc so you are going to get an unpleasant cheap/ expensive/ vip type separation of people around the site. So you would lose the random, in it together vibe. 

I think making Worthy View bigger and bigger is a good idea. Seems daft it gets sold out in an hour. Maybe they could make some of the campsites further out at the edge of the site pre-erected. But the whole site? Never going to happen. 

And education education education. If it gets a bit better each year we must be moving in the right direction. 

 

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Another solution would be to pitch one big tent (I guess that would be called a marquee ?) that could sleep dozens (or more).

It would cut down on costs and make it more economically viable perhaps?

Obviously, a lot of people wouldn't be interested due to lack of privacy - also security could be an issue.

Back in fence jumping times, a larger % of people used to turn up without anywhere to kip (I guess mainly because it was hard to get over the fence if you brought loads of equipment) and I recall people using a big communal tent that used to be where Big Ground is now (was it the Hare Krishna tent?) to kip in.

 

 

 

 

 

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(Are there people playing basketball in that campsite image?  How shit must that hypothetical festival be that they'd rather play basketball?)

 

Anyway, I can definitely see benefits to pre-pitched, but I just can't see 100% pre-pitched working - no choice as to who you're pitched next to definitely doesn't appeal to me - at least if you've brought your own you can move to a quieter/rowdier pitch if you want.  The logistics of managing, pitching and then removing 140000 or so tents boggles the mind.  And, I can see there still being a lot wastage as the sort of people who treat the tends as disposable and trash them then leave them behind will be, I suspect, even more likely to treat them as disposable.

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15 hours ago, Jack_FM said:

On the back of this research I’ve set up something called BassCamp as a service that could do this. BassCamp is an affordable pre-pitched service… starting at £20 per person on top of your festival ticket, and grouping friends together in their own tents. 

I've just noticed that the OP actually says "starting at" £20 per person. And the website itself says "from £30", so it does look like it will actually create a tiered experience within Glastonbury as someone on here mentioned earlier... 

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2 hours ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

No need to worry about this ever happening though - Eavis was no more sincere in his 100% pre-pitched comments than he was in his hints at moving festival location.  He's just a wily fox when it comes to PR...  I still find it depressing that we put the shutters down to a radical solution like this because the move from individualism/consumerism to a managed/cooperative approach threatens to push us out of our comfort zone.

100% pre-pitched is a solution to what? The waste of people leaving stuff behind?

100% pre-pitched means paying people to set up the tents and check the tents before the festival. Then guide people to their tents and deal with issues during the festival (because a leaky or damaged tent is now the problem of the festival, not the tent owner). Then they have to pay to clean them, take them down, and store them for 11 months until next year. 

Would it work? Sure. But it's not cheap. And if you're spending all that money, you can instead spend it on paying the same people to just clean, dismantle and sell the tents left behind at the end of the festival. It's a slightly more fiddly job - because the tents won't be arranged in neat lines and you'll need different methods for packing away each brand of tent. But you'll be dealing with 5% of the number of tents and because you're reselling them at the end and didn't pay for them in the first place, you might even make a profit. 

There's an issue that, if you say you're doing this, lots more people will leave their tents behind. But it's not going to be anywhere near 100%. Which the number you have to clean and strike and store with a fully pre-pitched system.

The other argument is that you know who owns each pitch, so people are responsible for the state of the tent if it's damaged, covered in crap, whatever. But then "oh it was fine when I left it on Monday, someone must have done that after". And you can't hotel check out 130,000 people with a tent inspection on a Monday morning either. So that's not enforceable.

The festival is in a difficult position but are also part of the problem. They don't pay the extra money (ie. charge us the extra money) to have leftover tents recycled and donated to charity or resold. It's not that costly. It's far cheaper than running a 100% pre-pitched system! But they stick them in landfill. But then, they sort of have to do that, because if they don't, people think it's fine to leave their shit behind. Their best option would be to quietly start recycling abandoned tents, while maintaining that they actually go to landfill. Maybe they already are.

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On further thinking, here's what I'd do:

From Sunday, have each campsite steward place and merchandise stall sell sticky "recycle my tent" badges for say £10. £20 max. On the back of these badges is a list of rules:

  • 1) Please ensure the tent is left fully set up (so it can be checked for damage)
  • 2) Please ensure the tent is empty, with no litter left in the tent - put it in the black bags provided.
  • 3) Please do not leave any other camping equipment in or by the tent: either take it home with you or to the campsite rubbish dump.
  • 4) Please affix this sticker to the door of your tent

This does a bunch of things. Firstly it pays for the labour cost of actually packing away and donating that tent to charity. Secondly it provides a legit option for those who were going to leave stuff behind anyway - this has the impact of making abandoning your tent without doing this feel "more wrong" - because you've got 20 excuses for leaving your tent behind and none for not at least buying a sticker for the price of two pints and doing it the proper way. This sort of psychology actually works. It also reinforces the "sure you can leave the tent but then take the rest of your shit home" message. Lastly if people think their tent might actually be reused, and they're paying a small fee to donate it to something worthy, they're less likely to ruin it over the weekend - they know from day one they're going to leave it behind, but they also know it's not going straight in the bin, so it'd be nice not to trash it.

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8 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

100% pre-pitched is a solution to what? The waste of people leaving stuff behind?

Yep.  I collect abandoned tents after the festival and this year I found myself in the unenviable position of agreeing with The Sun & co: Glastonbury's claims about the step-change in waste were hollow.  As far as recycling tents is concerned, the problem is that most of them are budget 'festival' tents.  I give the tents I collect away for free,  but nobody would want these ones - even at that price...  They're all plastic and they all go to landfill, and would still do so even if they'd been packed away neatly.

You raise loads of valid points about the impracticality of attempting 100% pre-pitched.  I can't argue with any of those,  but the alternatives are all variations on the theme of education or 'awareness raising.'  I share the Extinction Rebellion view on 'awareness raising' - i.e. it's a bunch of passengers on a bus heading over a cliff discussing producing a leaflet on 'fatigue and driving' to leave near the sleeping driver.

I'm a total hypocrite by the way - I don't walk the walk - but I'd still welcome Glastonbury attempting to do something genuinely radical on this.  Other festivals, like Burning Man, are streets ahead when it comes to setting examples to the rest of society.  Replacing all plastic tents with canvas ones would require a huge management operation but I see this as one of those JFK 'we do these things because they are hard' situations.

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Replacing an existing plastic tent with canvas wouldn’t be popular, canvas tents are heavy, really heavy. Especially if you’re walking a mile or 2 from the car park. 

banning the sale of cheap tents is a good move, but then are you pricing people out of the festival? Maybe that’s all they can afford. I know they’re a false economy but some people don’t wanna know.

if there was an option for reserved camping pitches like at boomtown I think a lot more people would arrive Thursday. You can book as many as you want next to each other as well, and you know who’s tent is who’s,unless they wait until next door leave and Chuck their tent over there. 

Im a big fan of the tent registration, barcode the tent on the way in for a pre paid £10 fee, scan it on your way out and get the £10er back, needs to be done in a way that doesn’t add to queues/ add more staff to keep it moving. Might need to be more to discourage abandoning. Also presents a problem if some drunk person falls on your tent and breaks it. 

 

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33 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

On further thinking, here's what I'd do:

From Sunday, have each campsite steward place and merchandise stall sell sticky "recycle my tent" badges for say £10. £20 max. On the back of these badges is a list of rules:

  • 1) Please ensure the tent is left fully set up (so it can be checked for damage)
  • 2) Please ensure the tent is empty, with no litter left in the tent - put it in the black bags provided.
  • 3) Please do not leave any other camping equipment in or by the tent: either take it home with you or to the campsite rubbish dump.
  • 4) Please affix this sticker to the door of your tent

This does a bunch of things. Firstly it pays for the labour cost of actually packing away and donating that tent to charity. Secondly it provides a legit option for those who were going to leave stuff behind anyway - this has the impact of making abandoning your tent without doing this feel "more wrong" - because you've got 20 excuses for leaving your tent behind and none for not at least buying a sticker for the price of two pints and doing it the proper way. This sort of psychology actually works. It also reinforces the "sure you can leave the tent but then take the rest of your shit home" message. Lastly if people think their tent might actually be reused, and they're paying a small fee to donate it to something worthy, they're less likely to ruin it over the weekend - they know from day one they're going to leave it behind, but they also know it's not going straight in the bin, so it'd be nice not to trash it.

I can't see this working at all. Only a very small percentage would purchase something to cover their laziness. Inconsiderate people would most definitely not.

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21 minutes ago, pahqman said:

I can't see this working at all. Only a very small percentage would purchase something to cover their laziness. Inconsiderate people would most definitely not.

Exactly this. People who leave tents are assholes. Assholes aren't going to drop £20 to mitigate their assholeness. That's not what assholes are like.

26 minutes ago, Old_Johno said:

banning the sale of cheap tents is a good move....

I surely agree, but if only the problem was just tents. The global economy runs on selling poorly-made stuff cheaply, when we'd all be better off spending a bit more and getting something of quality...

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21 minutes ago, pahqman said:

I can't see this working at all. Only a very small percentage would purchase something to cover their laziness. Inconsiderate people would most definitely not.

I think you would be surprised. Most people don't break the rules. How often do you see people barging in the line for a food stall or bar at Glasto? These same inconsiderate people follow these rules, but not the ones about taking their stuff back. There's a few reasons for that:

  • 1) It's not phrased as a rule, but more a request - please take your stuff home with you. Not "you're not allowed to leave it behind".
  • 2) There's no fear of any comeuppance - no-one is going to challenge you on leaving your tent behind. It's zero risk, not even the risk of some social awkwardness or being made to feel bad by a steward.
  • 3) Hungover and exhausted on a Monday morning, complying with the rule just feels more effort than it's worth.

You adopt the system I suggest, you implicitly make it a stronger rule: you can now pay to leave a tent behind - ergo it follows you can't do it for free. You can then say as much: you either buy a recycling tag, or you take it back. You can't leave your tent behind otherwise. It still can't be enforced, but it's likely it wouldn't need to be. Just the existence of it, and the presence of campsite stewards looking like they might challenge people "you want to buy a recycle tag for that tent mate?" changes the dynamic. Sure, people can, and will, just go "nah it's not mine" - but far, far fewer people will do that. By creating a system that has two valid options, you make it far less likely for people to take the third "rule-breaking" option. You could achieve some of the same impact by simply rephrasing "please take your stuff home" as "you have to take your stuff home" but by codifying it into a system you get better results.

The other points made about tents that are basically bought as one-use tents and don't actually have any resale value as are designed to barely survive a festival are certainly still an issue.

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8 minutes ago, maelzoid said:

Exactly this. People who leave tents are assholes. Assholes aren't going to drop £20 to mitigate their assholeness. That's not what assholes are like.

Is the festival 10-20% assholes then? Where are they all during the weekend then? 

Oh yeah Beat Hotel. Nevermind. 

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6 minutes ago, maelzoid said:

I surely agree, but if only the problem was just tents. The global economy runs on selling poorly-made stuff cheaply, when we'd all be better off spending a bit more and getting something of quality...

People are slowly waking up to the fact that token gestures are nothing more than a distraction and that radical action is needed.  There's increasing sympathy for the likes of George Monbiot, but with all these things - you need someone to fire the first shot.  Glastonbury is the perfect institution to do that - eliminating the disposal plastic tent would be a fantastic way to show up 'awareness raising' as the pointless exercise it is.  As discussed, this would require changes which would offend the sensibilities of the modern Thatcherite, consumerist, no-such-thing-as-society festival-goer with the result that it would take weeks, rather than minutes to sell out.

 

6 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Is the festival 10-20% assholes then? Where are they all during the weekend then? 

Oh yeah Beat Hotel. Nevermind. 

The Beat Hotel is the least of your worries.  Now we're past lunchtime, I'll explain the other common reason that abandoned tents at festivals go to landfill.  It's a surprisingly common practice to take your final Glastonbury dump in the privacy of your soon-to-be-abandoned tent.  Never fall for the pink fluffy Unicorn 'Glasto spirit' nonsense: we can all be scumbags when we've got a biblical hangover.

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