Festival-goers are warned that tents left behind aren’t given to charity but instead sent to landfill after tens of thousands of unwanted camping gear worth £1m is dumped at Reading
- Charities warn revellers against the ‘common misconception’ of left behind tents
- Notion abandoned equipment goes to a good cause is mostly untrue, they claim
- Comes as the dreaded clean-up job after the Reading Festival began on Tuesday
- Stewards have task of clearing up more than 60,000 tents from Berkshire field
Festival goers are leaving tens of thousands of tents behind in the false impression that they will be donated to refugees and the homeless.
Charities have warned revellers against the ‘common misconception’ that leaving behind their discarded sleeping bags and blow-up mattresses is ‘like a donation’.
It comes as the dreaded clean-up job after the Reading Festival began in earnest yesterday, with stewards tasked with clearing 60,000 tents in Berkshire.
More than 13,000 tents were dumped at the campsite along the River Thames last year, but this year’s collection is believed to be worth as much as £1million.
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A sea of abandoned tents, gazebos and blow-up mattresses have been left behind by revellers at Reading Festival as the dreaded clean-up began today. As many as 60,000 one and two-man tents have been dumped on the site near the Thames
A sea of abandoned tents, mattresses and gazebos are pictured surrounded by rubbish after the end of Reading Festival
Teresa Moore, director at environmental campaign group A Greener Festival, said many festival goers wrongly assumed their tents would go to a good cause.
The charity’s research suggests that the amount of discarded tents rose dramatically after a number of festivals advertised a recycling service.
She told the Daily Telegraph: ”It backfired and since then.
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‘Most festivals have rowed back from that, urging people to take them with them. ‘But in a way, it is too late.’
Matt Wedge, director of Festival Waste Reclamation and Distribution, told the newspaper that only 10 per cent of abandoned equipment does not go to landfill.
‘We co-ordinate local volunteers and charity groups and take as much as we can for the homeless and refugees in Calais and Dunkirk but realistically, up to 90 per cent gets left behind,’ he said.
Stewards woke up to the daunting task of clearing 60,000 one and two-man tents from the campsite in Berkshire this morning, as well as piles and piles of litter left by festival-goers
This year, Reading Festival organisers, who have to fund the clear-up costs from ticket sales, put a message on their site to warn them that tents would go to landfill.
More than 100,000 people attended the three-day event with tickets costing up to £250 each.
In some areas, huge heaps of already-dismantled £30 tents could be seen while a sea of litter, dumped drinks cans and cardboard food containers was festooned across the huge site beside the town’s Rivermead Leisure Centre.
A spokesman for Reading Borough Council said: ‘The festival organisers oversee any clean up on the festival site.
‘The council cleans outside of the event area in the surrounding parkland and roads. The cost of any additional clean-up work required is covered by the festival organisers. This work begins on the Tuesday prior to the event and finishes on the Monday bank holiday evening, operating for 21 hours each day.’
Every year festival-goers in Reading (pictured) and Leeds decide to lighten their load and leave their tents behind in the field, leaving stewards to dismantle them and dispose or recycle them
Last year over 13,000 tents were abandoned at the Reading Festival. This year’s clean-up will see 60,000 cleared away
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