Heading to a music festival this year? Or maybe you’ve already booked for next year. There’s nothing quite like camping for that immersive experience. Festival campsites are given dreamy names and decorated with paper lanterns, bonds are formed in the endless shower queues, and bartering toothpaste and toilet paper turns campmates into friends.
On the last day, it’s a different story. The music stops, the floodlights are switched on and patrons start to pull out. What remains is often a field strewn with discarded tents, sleeping mats and deck chairs, like some kind of middle-class apocalypse.
Difficult to recycle
While there are no precise figures for tents left behind at Irish music festivals, more than 250,000 tents are abandoned at UK music festivals annually, according to climate charity Wrap.
Discarded tents aren’t good. A typical four-person tent of 4.8kg can use the same amount of plastic as nearly 9,000 plastic straws, 200 (500ml) plastic bottles or 22 Coldplay LPs, according to Wrap. Turn your nose up at plastic water bottles and drink straws all year, but leave your tent behind at a music festival and your virtue is undone.
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“Tents are incredibly difficult to recycle – most abandoned tents are destined for landfill or incineration if they can’t be re-used or donated,” says Wrap.
No return
Camping is a once-a-year festival thing for many. Thousands of people buy a cheap tent, use it for three nights and then walk away. A “No Tent Left Behind” campaign in the UK by retailer Decathlon recognises that this is a problem.
“Most tents left behind at festivals go to landfill,” says Decathlon. Its campaign, fronted by the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage presenter Jo Whiley, aims to reduce this waste.
Anyone buying a festival tent from the retailer can use it for a festival and return it to get a gift card equal to the tent’s price. Returned tents are refurbished, cleaned and resold through the retailer’s Second Life programme, extending their lifespan and reducing single-use consumption.
Irish festival goers are out of luck, however, as the scheme isn’t running here.
Don’t buy disposable
Ireland’s biggest musical festival, Electric Picnic, has increased numbers to 75,000 this year, that’s 5,000 more than last year. If you want to reduce tent waste, stop buying single-use tents, say the organisers. Patrons are encouraged to save money and the planet by buying a durable tent they can use again.
Donate it
If you want to donate your tent after the festival, then bring it to your local charity shop, says Electric Picnic. Tents left behind will be incinerated, organisers say.
St Vincent de Paul shops will take second-hand tents in good repair, says the charity. Its Sean McDermott Street shop in Dublin, for example, sells second-hand tents and also gives them away for free to rough sleepers.
The tent problem isn’t all down to patrons. Festival organisers must take more accountability for generating so much waste, environmental group Voice has said.
Green at a cost
Some festivals advise ticket-holders to opt for their “eco campsites” which have pre-pitched tents.
Festival tent provider Pink Moon provides pre-pitched tents at Electric Picnic and the All Together Now festival. Pink Moon describes this as a “greener alternative” and “much less of a hassle to clear up”.
“The tents are mainly made from recycled materials”, it says. They are “designed to be reused” and are “the only ones in the world designed to be easily recycled”. The Pink Moon tents get reused at other festivals as long they are intact, says Electric Picnic.
The cost of using a pre-pitched tent at Pink Moon’s “Moonlight Meadows” campsite at Electric Picnic range from €299 for a two-person “mini dome” tent to €985 for a six-person tent. The same tents are €55 and €180 cheaper at All Together Now.
This “greener” option may be too pricey for some compared to a €30 camping shop tent.
Borrow
The cheapest and greenest way to camp at a festival is to borrow a tent. If you do buy one, keep it in good nick, lend it to a friend or donate it for reuse.