Plastic-Free Festivals – isn’t that just a pipe dream?

Plastic festival tents left behind at events account annually for about 900 tonnes of waste today in Britain. Over a third of tents are left at festivals because on the last day people just can’t be bothered to pack them up and take them home.

Glastonbury installed recycling bins in 2008 and announced recently it would be banning the use of plastic bottles. More is in the pipeline to reduce mounting waste which costs them over £750 million to clean-up.

This week the world’s largest concert promoter, Live Nation, will eliminate single-use plastics at its venues and festivals by 2021. That means events like Reading and Leeds, Wireless, Latitude and Download will be going plastic free. Hosting 35,000 concerts and festivals each year, “Live Nation has the opportunity and responsibility to provide its artists and fans with a live music experience that protects our planet’ commented Michael Rapino, President of Live Nation Entertainment.

We attended and spoke at the AGF (A Greener Festival) conference in London recently and talked about how festivals need to be working toward going plastic-free. The overwhelming message from the festival sector is that action is needed urgently to change everyone’s behaviour and stem the flow of plastic and with more sustainable alternatives which can be easily recovered, recycled or composted to make soil and energy.

Organisers and sponsors are all playing their part to coordinate the biggest clean-up of festivals in history. Global brands like Carlsberg, Molton Coors, Heineken and Coca-Cola are all working hard behind the scenes to make this possible. I’ve never seen so much activity taking place at once and am encouraged by the collective passion to collaborate and achieve what some say is impossible.

We launched REELtent in December last year because we could see from the great work Kartent is doing that there is a need for sustainable products to replace plastic festival tents. These are water-resistant tents made entirely of 100% paperboard (zero plastic) which in the case of REELtent can last several weeks outdoors in typical British weather!

Introducing the REELtent…