Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Disgusted with the rubbish left behind at Reading Festival

235 replies

mydogisthebest · 31/08/2021 09:11

Every festival is the same, tons of rubbish left behind.

All those tents just left and most of them will be going to landfill they said this morning.

Considering the average festival goer is fairly young why do they not care about all the rubbish? The lazy so and so's can't even be bothered to take the tents down let alone carry them to the collection point.

Apparently there was also loads of food just left!

These are the youngsters that supposedly care about the planet and climate change. Yeah like hell they do. Some might but the majority just don't.

The mentality of buying a tent and food and other items and then just up and leaving them just beggars belief. The parents have obviously not taught values.

I used to live very close to where the V Festival was held and the amount of rubbish left behind used to amaze me every year.

Apparently it will take a team (no idea how many) 2 weeks to clear Reading.

It makes me so angry

OP posts:
Puzzledandpissedoff · 31/08/2021 11:05

Ask many a teen if they're prepared to wear second hand clothing or use an old mobile (or better yet no mobile at all ...how do I manage!). To eat non commercially processed food, not to buy fast food.....in fact any of the trappings of modern 21st century life and I can image what the answer would be

I don't need to imagine it; I suggested exactly this to a group and was met by a mass of gormless 100 yard stares which only 15 year olds can manage

Great attempt to blame manufacturers for "cheap crap" though. Packaging's pretty cheap too, so does that mean it's okay to leave it strewn around?
As for many others littering meaning there's no incentive to clear up, how about being "the change they want to see" - you know, as they often prate that we should all be doing?

Tal45 · 31/08/2021 11:06

@BoredZelda

They genuinely believe that litter and waste is a problem, yet they genuinely believe they are not to blame for it when they leave stuff behind.

Or, and this might be hard to grasp, the people leaving stuff behind are not the same people who care about the environment. It it entirely possible that an entire festival full of people have different beliefs.

At my son's school there was a climate change protest where they all left lessons and sat in the field. Afterwards the field was covered in litter! They only care if it doesn't impact them in any way and they can carry on however they like. They want other people to change to 'save' them.
bigbluebus · 31/08/2021 11:08

My DS has never been to a festival as it would be his idea of hell but on the subject of litter and recycling - we recycle lots of stuff here and go to the 'refill' shop, all of which he knows about and yet I regularly pull him up on putting recyclables and food waste into the general waste bin. He just thinks that whether or not he puts a toilet roll insert into landfill or the blue bag supplied by the council will make not a jot of difference to the planet - there are much bigger forces at play that are causing more problems. No point trying to reason with him! Don't think he'd ever drop or leave litter outside though!

DH and I went to a small festival a couple of weeks ago (2000 people camping over 3 fields). The festival Facebook page declared at 3pm on the Monday that the site was totally clear and they had barely had to pick up any litter. The difference between that and Reading (apart from size) is that everyone has their vehicle next to their tent so if you CBA to walk to the bins you just chuck it in your car/van and take it home. No-one leaves tents as they're all proper tents (not small festival tents) although a few broken gazebos end up in the skips every year.

Abraxan · 31/08/2021 11:08

@Wroxie

A few years ago I was talking to the students at a uni where I was doing some outreach and they believed they were doing a good thing by leaving their tents behind because they would be donated to homeless people... they actually thought that they'd be depriving someone if they took their tent home. Madness.

People should be weighed with all their stuff when they enter and when they leave and charged for the difference

So you're charging people for eating and drinking their food/drink?? Most people will come home with far less than they took, even if they haven't discarded rubbish in the field!
TheLovelinessOfDemons · 31/08/2021 11:09

I suspect that they're too pissed and stoned to care. My friend's on the staff of a small festival, I must ask her how much shit they have to clear up. Obviously, we put ours in one of the many bins provided.

RampantIvy · 31/08/2021 11:09

Or charge more for tickets and give a refund to those who take their rubbish away - £10?

godmum56 · 31/08/2021 11:09

[quote ElvisPresleyHadABaby]@godmum56
Fair point, but she is only 18 and their friend group decided to go as a post A-Levels celebration, I think it was actually her idea to do a holiday that didn't involve flying. She did her part to clear up, is young and still wanted to be with her friends and see the live music, so I really don't blame her for going.[/quote]
no, neither do I.

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 31/08/2021 11:11

Ask many a teen if they're prepared to wear second hand clothing or use an old mobile (or better yet no mobile at all ...how do I manage!). To eat non commercially processed food, not to buy fast food.....in fact any of the trappings of modern 21st century life and I can image what the answer would be

Among ds's friends second hand clothes are really popular, they buy all the designer gear cheaply from online sites.

Marguerite2000 · 31/08/2021 11:12

This kind of thing will always happen as long as people can afford to buy cheap throwaway stuff.
When I was a child/teenager every possession was valued, because things were expensive and people couldn't afford to replace them (unless you were rich). Of course you took your tent home with you, because you wouldn't be able to shell out for a new one. People used flasks and beakers for their drinks and took them home so they could use them again for the next trip. Food wasn't wasted, because it was relatively expensive.
To be fair, people did still drop things like wrappers and plastic bags. It's not like litter wasn't a problem.
If people really want to be enviromentally friendly we have to stop buying cheap stuff just because we can, only buy things we really need, and reuse them as many times as possible.

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 31/08/2021 11:13

I'm not sure I'D manage without a phone these days, everywhere is geared towards the customer having one.

Ds has a refurbished iphone.

RacistAngst · 31/08/2021 11:16

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

I'm not sure I'D manage without a phone these days, everywhere is geared towards the customer having one.

Ds has a refurbished iphone.

You can't live wo a phone nowdays, no more than you can live wo the internet.

The 'Oh they don't want to give up the frivolous phone' vs 'in my days, we did wo' is getting tiring. Times change. Everything is now set up with the assumption you own a phone (and not the cheap Nokia brick either).

ItWorriesMeThisKindofThing · 31/08/2021 11:17

@EatSprayGlove I don’t work in a cinema but I would guess that it ensures the stuff they pick up from the seats is recycled or disposed of in the correct bins. Also probably ensures every seat gets cleaned properly?

Ponoka7 · 31/08/2021 11:19

The tent issue needs solutions, but what's the point of taking litter home? It's still going to landfill. There isn't the ability to wash out lager bottles and I'm sure commuters don't want the smell of stale lager bottles/cans carried in a bag across public transport.
My DD works on agency at events. It's allowing her to expand her CV while choosing when she works, plus she's getting to see lots of things for free. Event services are good source of employment. I agree that they should have skips, not bins. I've only been to festivals half the size of reading, but skips work really well. The only issue is that the recycle one ends up with rubbish in, but someone could be there watching what goes in. Festival tickets sell out, people will pay what's needed.

TheLovelinessOfDemons · 31/08/2021 11:20

As for doing without a mobile phone, we don't have a landline, also, both schools require us to have the app as nothing's done on paper anymore.

RacistAngst · 31/08/2021 11:20

Ask many a teen if they're prepared to wear second hand clothing or use an old mobile (or better yet no mobile at all ...how do I manage!). To eat non commercially processed food, not to buy fast food.....in fact any of the trappings of modern 21st century life and I can image what the answer would be

Ask anyone on MN and see what answer you will get.....
Only eating non processed food = lentil weaver
No phone = how do you connect onto MN!!
Old mobile = I just got my new with my contract. I had no choice
etc....

Saving the planet is not just the responsibility of teenagers. Actually it needs to start with the parents actually giving the example there.

itsgettingwierd · 31/08/2021 11:20

@MsTSwift

Surely a smart thing to do would for a company to hire hardy decent tents to festival goers on arrival who leave them there and they get put away by the company and reused for the next festival and festival goers don’t have to lug their tents. I would charge a surcharge on those bringing their own tents so it was cheaper and easier to hire them there. So wrong that it’s cheaper to buy a cheap tent on Amazon and leave it behind. Immoral. We are smarter than that!
That's a really good idea.

With the invention of glam ping being popular I could see this catching on - even if they are much more basic tents!

I suppose you could have different tents for different prices though!

Ponoka7 · 31/08/2021 11:22

Just to add national express aren't going to let a coach full of people all carry a bag of rubbish with them, either.

lockdownmadnessdotcom · 31/08/2021 11:23

@Dreamstate

Why don't you point the finger at the parents of those children who early haven't raised them up to respect the environment enough to not litter, plenty of mumsnetters whose children attended....
Why don't you point the finger at the lazy teenagers who left the rubbish rather than their parents who weren't there?

Do you you still do everything your parents tell you, or told you, to do?

No? Thought not.

QueenHofScotland · 31/08/2021 11:27

They just need to supply accommodation instead and bump the ticket prices up, people will still go.

VladmirsPoutine · 31/08/2021 11:29

So ALL young people everywhere don't give a rats arse about the environment because some of them left rubbish at a festival site therefore ALL young people who bang on about climate change and the environment are hypocrites. Got it.

AuntyFungal · 31/08/2021 11:32

I like the idea of dorm marquees. Bring a sleeping bag. Camp bed supplied. Lockers to keep stuff safe. Keep it cheap to offer a viable alternative to the glamping / main fields.
Maybe even sex / women with small kids, segregated ones.

Festivals like subletting to glamping companies. More £ for little effort and happy customers.

I stopped going to festivals in the early ‘00s. I’ve still got my tents from back then. Those tents were (relatively) too expensive to leave. I knew plenty of fellow festival goers who took binbags and cleaned up.

To be fair, Reading, V and Leeds were always known as grimy piss-ups.

Kiduknot · 31/08/2021 11:33

I’m ashamed to admit my well brought up teen left his tent and chair there. It’s our tent so he knew he wouldn’t be popular, but apparently he struggled so much carrying all the gear there, over a very long walk from the drop off point, that he couldn’t face carrying it back again Angry

Given the state he was in after 5 days of no sleep and much alcohol, I can see why this was the easy option. He’s under no illusion that we are not impressed though.

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 31/08/2021 11:34

Covid marquees more like Wink

Chumleymouse · 31/08/2021 11:34

I don’t see the difference in bringing it home and putting it in the bin , or leaving it there and someone being paid to put it in the bin , it’s still going to the land fill whichever way.

Chumleymouse · 31/08/2021 11:40

@Kiduknot
Thats exactly it , I went to Leeds 2019 and it must be a mile from where the car was packed to the camp site, carrying all your gear( I made a trolley) that far is a nightmare , it was roasting too,. People don’t bring half the stuff back because it’s just too far to carry it if you’ve had a rough weekend and had enough.