to expect festival goers to pick up their own litter?

[tripletrouble]

I thought that the people who go to Glastonbury are generally educated people who care about the environment. How come they left all that litter?

It's no excuse but after four days of partying hard, and the car parks are a looooong walk away most people aren't up for lugging back anything they don't want to keep.

Beautiful Days is the one for me now. It's lovely and free (as in spirited not £ ;) ) and very clean.

I'd rather eat my arm than go anywhere near Glastonbury. So many reasons.

It is not just what people leave behind when they leave. I went for the first time two years ago - I was shocked by the number of people/groups that sat around to eat and drink and then just got up and left, leaving plates of half eaten food, cups etc. even within a few paces of a bin. Disgusting behaviour from (mostly) young people. I did feel rather middle aged when I suggested to a number that they pick up after themselves - but they did it. No one wants to tread in the remains of a Goan fish curry on the way to the Stones...

PoorNeglectedBike are you going to Beautiful Days this year? See you there if so

We took our camper van and bought a camping toilet to use (best £50 I ever spent). As we left the field an identical one was sitting there abandoned. Whoever's it was couldn't be bothered to empty it. We debated taking it ourselves and selling it on but decided that we didn't really want to deal with 4 days of someone else's bowels!

Good grief! If there are no bins you take it home.

why dont they use them huge walk-in skips

If you litter pick you get your ticket for free - you have to commit to a certain number of hours - well you used too.

Fwiw I always bagged our litter when I was festivaling in my youth.

I'm an ex-Glastonbury goer myself, and I agree that it seems to have gone downhill for many reasons. The laidback, diverse vibe has gone, and it just seems to be a bunch of hipsters who just want to be able to brag on social media about their experience. Of course they don't give a shit about the land, or the poor people who have to clean up after them. They can afford to leave behind tents and camping equipment, and not just cheap supermarket ones either.

There's been a massive attitude shift around festivals in the past few years. They used to be pretty crusty and uncool, but now they're seen as an essential part of summer for young people. Shows like Festivals, Sex, and Suspicious Parents tend to sell them as some sort of modern Sodom and Gomorrah where you can get absolutely shitfaced and be an antisocial arsehole without any consequences.

The cleanest festival I went to was my last Reading years ago. They were giving out bin bags, and anyone who brought a full one back to the collection point got a can of Carling or a token for the bar. Not that you should have to bribe people like that, but it seemed to work like a charm.

It isn't true that all festivals are like that, the smaller ones are often pristine. However, as a veteran of 16 Glastonbury festivals, I decided a couple of years ago that it wasn't for me anymore, too many thoughtless people. They should never have put it on the telly.

They used to allow volunteers in at the end of festivals to collect left behind tents and other equipment. I know Scout leader's who'd go every year, collecting tents for their entire districts.

Most of the big festivals now charge people if they want to do that - combined with it all being filthy, broken, cheap tents that are left behind now, it's just not worth it anymore.

Gives someone a job?! That makes me so angry. I once walked past a girl who had thrown a whole McDonalds bag out of her car window and she said the same thing. I lectured her enough to make her regret it! As a foreigner who had the anti-littering message drummed into me all my school life, I can't understand this mentality. People should have pride in their country and not use it as a dumping ground (literally).
As for Glasto. I have been going for 15 years and I love it. Yes, there are a lot of disgusting people - but what can you expect when there are 175 000 people, many of whom are students (and I was an irresponsible, thoughtless student once) and some of whom are people who live on 'the fringes of society'. I get annoyed with all the negative talk of how it has become middle-class, middle-aged, etc. What do you think happened to those hippy students of the 70s and 80s? Some of them went on to become the 'boring middle-aged middle-classes' and now bring their kids - me included.
I have been to many of the other festivals in the UK and nothing compares to Glastonbury - still. I am quite happy for people to stop going - maybe I have a better chance of getting a ticket!
PS: We took all our litter with us. And as for no available bins? Are you kidding me? You are never more than a few metres from a group of bins (recycling and waste). If you are camping, leaving your litter (rotting or otherwise) in binliners ready for the cleaning staff is better than littering the ground.

why dont they use them huge walk-in skips

Because some drunken twonk would undoubtedly dive in it, not be able to get out and die.

Can't believe people here are justifying littering with the line 'it gives someone a job'. I wonder if their own DC threw crap all over the floor of their house and said 'oh don't worry, it gives mum and dad something to do' they'd be quite so flippant. Or is it because it's a low wage job and they see littering as a service to the serfs and peasants that pick up their shite?