AIBU to think people should be fined if they leave their tents?

[adhdforme]

I have just seen the mess left behind at the Reading festival. An absolute disgrace! The amount of rubbish and tents left behind that organisers are forced to clear up. What makes people think this is ok? I have:

a) Always wondered why people feels it's ok to leave their mess behind like this. They obviously don't care

b) Can't comprehend how people can pay good money for a tent only to chuck it away after

c) Never been to a festival because I know I just couldn't handle the filth and chaos of it all, so I struggle to understand the above two points.

Is there not a way event organisers can encourage attendees to tidy up after themselves? More waste bins? Attendees given a ticket / wrist band that shows they did or didn't arrive with a tent and then fined at the end if they do not leave with what they came with? As I said I've not been to a festival before, so I have no idea how it all works. But I find the aftermath absolutely disgusting 😡

My sister-in-law and I took our kids to Reading and there were literally no waste bins at all. We were standing there with wrappers from fish and chips and just had no idea what to do with them. I just couldn't bring myself to throw them on the floor but we were standing almost knee deep in absolute filth and crap so nobody else had the same problem.

Care for Calais and other charities do go to the Reading site and pick up undamaged tents and equipment. They then get cleaned and taken to Calais.

Saying that the clear up is factored into the price of a ticket is absolutely not saying leaving your tent and litter is acceptable. Of course it isn't. But people saying there should be security on the way out making sure everyone leaves with their sleeping bag and tent are not thinking of the logistics of making that happen.

I believe some festivals were trialling compostable cardboard tents a few years ago that you pay to rent and then get thrown away afterwards. Not sure how successful they were though.

Im coming over all DM, sorry but I bet some of these dicks are also the ones who glue themselves to motorways and block ambulances. Hmm. What is it exactly about a tents material composition that stops you getting wet...

It would be really easy to police. You have to give a deposit per tent you arrive with, you get the deposit back if you can show the tent when you leave.

I was dismayed seeing reports from Reading and Leeds this year. I've attended myself when much younger and it really wasn't anything like this.
I'm mostly disappointed because I thought the younger generations were much more environmentally aware these days (being taught in school and growing up in the era of climate emergency).
When you think of how much of the debris will end up in landfill, can we really justify holding such events in the future?

I used to go to the Reading Festival many years ago with DH.

The final time was enough for us.

All night drunk people shouting and screaming clearly off their faces, fighting, falling into our tent as we were trying to sleep. Trying to force their way into our tent convinced it was theirs. The devastation the next morning with an astonishing amount of litter including human waste.

My defining memory of the last one was seeing a shit-filled adult nappy smeared all over a broken tent.

Humanity at its lowest.

Exactly. "Oh our tent was too fragile". Bollocks. We've a cheap as chips Mountain warehouse 'festival' tent that's well over 10 years old and has been pitched and put away multiple times, including when wet. You just take it out again and dry it off.

"I don't need to look after the environment because I'm paying someone else to chuck stuff in landfill so that I don't have to". There shouldn't be waste in the first place, those tents would last years if looked after.

I stayed after a festival to help clear up about ten years ago and ended up with a free brand new £500 8 man tent. People just buy them for the weekend and then abandon them. I've still got the tent, it's great! But I do wish people wouldn't do it. It doesn't take long at all to take the tent down and even just drop it in a charity shop on the way home. Anything but abandoning them to landfill (which is what happens to most of the abandoned tents).

It's not all cheap pop-up tents that are left, though. I know someone who salvaged a brand new, very expensive, state-of-the-art family tent (after checking inside first!).They'd spotted the occupants calmly packing up and leaving on Saturday night. There was no trouble in that particular camp, but it was just as messy on Sunday morning. The tent has clearly been bought and used just once - most of the guylines still neatly bundled by the manufacturer. Carpet too. They looked it up online out of curiosity to find retailing for well over £1k! Some people clearly have more money than sense. 🙄