ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

The great Glastonbury clean-up is well under way as volunteers and clean-up crews congregate on Worthy Farm to collect piles of rubbish.

And despite the festival's "Love the farm, leave no trace" policy there were still hundreds of tents, plastic bags, food containers, laughing gas canisters and cans strewn across the site after festival-goers had departed.

But the situation is improving, according to Glastonbury's organisers. Around 99 per cent of all tents have been taken home after each event since 2019, while 50 per cent of all waste created by the festival is now reused or recycled.

Following the 2019 event more than 68 tonnes of paper and card, 38 tonnes of glass, 57 tonnes of cans and 17 tonnes of plastic bottles were recycled. In the same year more than 149 tonnes of food waste went to compost while 14,000 litres of cooking oil was turned into biofuel.

More than 210,000 people attended the five-day Somerset festival in June 2023.

"We are passionate about reducing rubbish sent to landfill and we ask festival-goers to bring only what they need and leave nothing behind," state the organisers. "It is very important to minimise the enormous impact this makeshift city has on the countryside on which it stands. We are grateful to our festival-goers for their continuing respect for the land."

Event co-organiser Emily Eavis says it can cost up to £500,000 to restore the site to its original state each year. It is estimated that over 2,000 tonnes of waste - nearly 10kg per visitor - is left behind at each festival.

Photo: Andrew Allcock