Reading Festival

[dave m]

It nearly always pours - I mused the other day that it would be ironic if it turned out to be fantastic weather when the festival was cancelled.
Some poor sod probably has a van full of Chinese wellies going to waste now. But they'll keep

[OLDMAN]

Not sure it ‘nearly always pours’ but that we remember the wet ones more

I went a few times many years back and only remember 1 wet time - wasn’t bothered as we could go home and come back the next day
But I also remember sitting out all night under the stars in big groups chatting / drinking etc

Later on when I stopped going people I know used to run stalls down there (outside the arena) and I used to go and help, for a 3 years running the local pub landlord ran a beer tent in Richfield Ave
OH worked at the pub then so I used to help with running money /change back and forth from the pub so he didn’t have too much down there (I could easily get through the traffic on a motorbike) and helped on the bar itself at times – it was dry for the years he did that, and really sunny / hot one time

[dave m]

Yeah- it was a bit tongue in cheek..
Back in the days of flared jeans my mate and I used to sit on the river bank with our lower legs in the river to try to wash the Somme like mud off.

They reckon that it's loss will be a £15 million hit to the economy

[Lizzy33]

Did anyone attend?
I avoid the town centred this year but I can imagine it was busy

[OLDMAN]

No - can't say, apart from the odd band or two, that I like the music there these days

[Mayfield]

No doubt we have all seen the photos of the tents left this was posted by a lady called HelennRoche who has been helping with the clear up :

I'd like to write an essay about the experience of tent-scavenging with HertsforRefugees at the Reading Festival site, on Monday and Tuesday, but I'm too knackered! Even though we got to salvage between 2000 and 2500 tents for refugees in Calais and Dunkerque, and doubtless more than number of sleeping bags, the main feeling of everyone concerned is - WTF?!
The sheer waste, of so much stuff going into landfill, is absolutely obscene. Only a few dozen salvagers were on-site as far as I know, and we barely scratched the surface. Most of the tents that are abandoned get bulldozed and sent to landfill, in spite of what seems to be a prevalent myth that 'they all get taken by charities'. Nope! Only a fraction.
Besides which, we only took a certain type of pop-up tent that is appropriate for the recipients. Larger tents, of which there were many, and tents with the bendy supports threaded through, we couldn't take. Large, new family-size tents worth hundreds - all got bulldozed. Ditto thousands of sleeping mats, inflatable mattresses, folding chairs, abandoned clothes, etc etc.
Reading Festival, and all the other majors, need to start taking sustainability seriously, instead of the feeble window-dressing they indulge in at the moment. They have a sustainability and outreach department, but you'd hardly know it. According to someone at New Beginnings (a charity for the homeless in Reading, who also sent salvagers) they were utterly useless, didn't respond to communications, and it was only through persistence and connections that N.B. managed to get a team there at all.

[Voiceoftreason?]

Good grief. I had no idea there were that many. Had I know I would have liked to help out a local charity.

[Mayfield]

Apparently it’s not that easy for charities to get access - for all their words about having a sustainability officer etc. Much of it seems to be window dressing and there is a real issue.

[Voiceoftreason?]

Apparently it’s not that easy for charities to get access - for all their words about having a sustainability officer etc. Much of it seems to be window dressing and there is a real issue.

Flipping heck. I would say typical but I’m trying to be kind. Sounds like a tick box exercise to me Mayfield. Let’s have a sustainability officer, that’ll sound good. Yeah but let’s not bother to engage with local charities who may very well find these items helpful AND provide a free workforce/advertise for local folk to help clear and categorise the items

[lizwing]

All those plastic bottles and synthetic tents left by the generation which is lecturing US about saving the planet!

[Mayfield]

Yes, elsewhere I have suggested next year Greta Thunberg should headline

I am regularly nagged at my Mayfield junior about recycling - I wash and recycle every pot possible, try and keep food waste minimal , buy lots of my clothes in charity shops and plant the garden in a bee friendly way, have wood piles for insects, leave water out for hedgehogs etc….

And this is how the younger, greener generation that are busy telling us it’s all our fault, behave ….

Very irritating

[Fed-up]

They seem to know the price of everything and value of nothing.

Here is a photo of a camping field at Shrewsbury Folk Festival from a couple of years ago. The contrast is unbelievable - https://www.facebook.com/shrewsburyfolk ... 0925791993. You do not need to be on Facebook to view it.

[Voiceoftreason?]

Crikey, fed-up.

Don’t know what possesses people to buy things then dump them. My money was too hard come by to do that m afraid. Tents aren’t cheap, nor are sleeping bags. Not sure if it’s laziness that stops them taking it all home or entitlement that someone else will clear up after them

[C.A.Versham]

From what I have read it would seem that a Hazmat suit would be useful to go scavenging on the site. All manner of bodily fluids can be found in abundance apparently.

A youngling used to go and informs me that in her day there were far too few bins and those that were there soon became full. Looking at the size of the site from the drone pictures clearing all the fields so that they are safe for grazing is a mammoth task.

[Fed-up]

They have a big problem at Glastonbury where it cost an estimated £785,000 and six weeks in 2017 to tidy up so that the cattle could return - https://commercialwaste.trade/glastonbu ... st-785000/

[lizwing]

We try to recycle everything, daily paper, cardboard, plastic, soft plastic now goes to the local Tesco with carrier bags that aren’t reusable. We waste very little food, I put a lot in the freezer, even small amounts of something like spag Bol mount up until there’s enough for another meal. Our council,Tewkesbury, take almost everything for recycling and they now offer a kerbside collection of small electrical items like irons and kettles which saves a journey to the tip, which makes it even more galling to see the cavalier attitude of these youngsters.

[OLDMAN]

They seem to know the price of everything and value of nothing.

Here is a photo of a camping field at Shrewsbury Folk Festival from a couple of years ago. The contrast is unbelievable - https://www.facebook.com/shrewsburyfolk ... 0925791993. You do not need to be on Facebook to view it.

Not always the case there - from the Shropshire Star:
Big clear-up starts after Shrewsbury Folk Festival
Despite "tidy teams" working hard to keep the West Midlands Showground clean and neat during the festival itself, there was still a large task ahead for the teams of volunteers responsible for the tidy-up of the 53-acre site.

Jo Cunningham, spokeswoman for the festival said: "We had a team of approximately 500 stewards, who were all volunteers, who made sure that the whole site was kept clean and tidy throughout the festival.

[Fed-up]

From the same article https://www.shropshirestar.com/entertai ... -festival/:

"This meant that the clean-up ran very smoothly and with the minimum of fuss.

"We had very little actual rubbish to deal with as we make sure the majority of what is used by festival goers in the bars and food court could be recycled or returned.




So it sounds like there was very little rubbish and was a fairly quick process (unlike Reading).

[piwacket]

Don’t know what possesses people to buy things then dump them. My money was too hard come by to do that m afraid. Tents aren’t cheap, nor are sleeping bags. Not sure if it’s laziness that stops them taking it all home or entitlement that someone else will clear up after them

…probably both

As it seems it’s the same every year, shouldn’t there be a levy of some sort, either on the organisers or built in to the ticket price. If you take a tent etc in, you pay extra, probably at the entrance, otherwise people would deny intending such in advance when buying their ticket. It would mean more people ‘on the gate’ of course, but presumably they are checked in anyway? A tent/sleeping bag would be fairly bulky so pretty obvious to see. Alternatively a fine of say £x for every every tent etc left behind. I guess there is an upfront charge paid by the organisers for a Clear-up?
I admit it doesn’t resolve what to do with those that are left but at least there may not be so much. And it’s reprehensible that Charities don’t co-operate.

[lizwing]

It must be a generational thing but the only people I see dropping litter are the young, there’s a grammar school round the corner from us and the rubbish they drop is awful, sweet wrappers, plastic bottles just chucked on the ground.

[piwacket]

It must be a generational thing but the only people I see dropping litter are the young, there’s a grammar school round the corner from us and the rubbish they drop is awful, sweet wrappers, plastic bottles just chucked on the ground.

Same around here, and where OH used to live apparently.

[OLDMAN]

It must be a generational thing but the only people I see dropping litter are the young, there’s a grammar school round the corner from us and the rubbish they drop is awful, sweet wrappers, plastic bottles just chucked on the ground.

Same around here, and where OH used to live apparently.

TBH I also see a lot of youngsters dropping litter but almost as equally, similar numbers of middle aged people and older – perhaps the parents / grandparents of today’s youth as they must learn the disgusting habit from someone!

[dave m]

The festival "pay for the clear up" as it's their (leased?) land.
There is no public cost to clear the site, it's already included in the ticket price, in the form of the organiser's normal running costs.
Tents are cheap- that's why they are abandoned. Companies make "festival specials" to be sold in places like The Range. They're little better than toys and few would survive multiple use. Obviously there may be people who buy high quality and abandon them out of laziness. Some others may be given a hand me down and just can't be bothered. But a lot of it is business, just like Primark T shirts that are cheaper than a washing load.

I'm not defending mess and waste but look at the stands after Royal Ascot and it's similar (without the tents and fewer condoms)

The average person who leaves their tent is an A level student and being picked up by their parents. Maybe some PR would help asking parents who collect their kids to query where the tent is?

Or offer a bounty on tents handed in? Folded and reusable? But people would steal tents back in the 70's.

[Voiceoftreason?]

Handing in for a small discount off next festival maybe a good idea? The voucher or evoucher could be used against camping next time, or different venue if several festivals/gigs are run by same people?

Suppose you’d come across counterfeiting then

[windrush]

Most of the tents are cheap and disposable and not intended to be used more than once, that's what a local festival organizer reckons anyway.

Pete.

[Pooneil]

And this is how the younger, greener generation that are busy telling us it’s all our fault, behave ….

Very irritating

Oh please! Even if there were 5,000 tents abandoned at the festival, and they were all 4 man tents (and I suspect most were probably 2 man), that would only be 20,000 people culpable, out of a festival capacity of 100,000. Denigrating festivalgoers based on the actions of 20% of them is questionable. Denigrating an entire generation based on the actions of a fraction of a single percent of them (there are about 7.8 million people in the UK aged between 16 and 25) is an entire nonsense. I'm sure that I could dig up some figures that suggest 0.25% of people over 60 are racist and homophobic, but if I posted that "racist homophobes are what you'd expect of the older generation" I'd no doubt have people (quite rightly) jumping down my neck...

[KeithW]

The answer is not to allow the sale of single-use tents, surely? Have some sort of minimum standard, like with so much else. If someone really must have a cheap disposable tent, let them make one.

[Mayfield]

And this is how the younger, greener generation that are busy telling us it’s all our fault, behave ….

Very irritating

Oh please! Even if there were 5,000 tents abandoned at the festival, and they were all 4 man tents (and I suspect most were probably 2 man), that would only be 20,000 people culpable, out of a festival capacity of 100,000. Denigrating festivalgoers based on the actions of 20% of them is questionable. Denigrating an entire generation based on the actions of a fraction of a single percent of them (there are about 7.8 million people in the UK aged between 16 and 25) is an entire nonsense. I'm sure that I could dig up some figures that suggest 0.25% of people over 60 are racist and homophobic, but if I posted that "racist homophobes are what you'd expect of the older generation" I'd no doubt have people (quite rightly) jumping down my neck...

You obviously don’t have a child giving regular lectures about this Poo - and frankly as generalisations go I don’t feel too bad - look how Brexit was blamed on the older generation, how we are so often told ‘we had it all’ re housing and education .

Anyways there’s a move afoot to try and make it greener as part of some already existing initiative and make it the biggest ‘green’ festival in Europe …we’ll see.
No matter who does it, it’s not acceptable . End of.

[MickEdge]

Looking at the aftermath pictures, the footprint of what's left behind seems to be a pretty significant amount of the camp site, even allowing for carefully chosen camera angles. It's the same wherever you cram large groups together, for hours and days on end. There seems to be a herd response, when people see what others have discarded, knowing they won't be coming back and that someone's paid to clear it up. I'm not sure it's a generational thing, but one hopes that the young are more aware and concerned about the long term issues and damage being done. It seems just like many of us, they are not always very consistent in their beliefs, although perhaps more voluble then other generations. Two years on from the last festival, there seems little sign that constant media messaging about environmental damage has had much affect.

[ChipbuttyG]

Litter is not only a problem at the festival. Fly-tipping is rife across Reading now.

It seems to have coincided with the council's disastrous decision to replace the waste bins with smaller ones.

[bert]

It seems to have coincided with the council's disastrous decision to replace the waste bins with smaller ones.

I like that food waste is collected weekly now (particularly during the Summer). I also like that the food waste is used to generate fertilizer and generate electricity. I think the recycling rate in the town has also risen from 34% to 45%, partly as a result of the bin changes and people recycling more instead of forcing it all into their grey bins.

It's unfortunate that some residents don't take personal responsibility and choose to fly tip instead of sort their rubbish into the appropriate bins, but the changes to the bins seem like a positive change to me.

[ChipbuttyG]

It seems to have coincided with the council's disastrous decision to replace the waste bins with smaller ones.

I like that food waste is collected weekly now (particularly during the Summer). I also like that the food waste is used to generate fertilizer and generate electricity. I think the recycling rate in the town has also risen from 34% to 45%, partly as a result of the bin changes and people recycling more instead of forcing it all into their grey bins.

It's unfortunate that some residents don't take personal responsibility and choose to fly tip instead of sort their rubbish into the appropriate bins, but the changes to the bins seem like a positive change to me.

I get the first part of your response. However, recycling rates were increasing any way. The introduction of food waste is good.

However, It seems nonsensical to go to all the expense and logistics of taking the old bins away and issuing smaller new bins. Larger households filled their older waste bins, whilst single or smaller households didn't.

The issue now is, larger households, HMO's etc don't have enough capacity for their waste, so are taking to dumping their rubbish by litter bins, or bottle bank areas, as well as all sorts of other places. From that point of view the smaller waste bins have been a disaster. The bin at our bus stop is overflowing every day now, with litter bags placed underneath. The trade waste bins down the Oxford Rd are surrounded by other people's waste too.

Also, you can now only visit the recycling centre if you've booked a slot.

So now we're in a scenario where the council are actually spending more taxpayers money on cleaning up all this fly-tipping across Reading.

If you make it harder for people to dispose of their rubbish, this is the result.

[Ollycat]

Or they burn it. At all times of the day. It wouldn't be so bad if it were after dusk. As I sit here working from home I can smell the odious and sadly familiar harbinger of a bonfire in the locality.