Mud and eco activity at Glastonbury

Here at Glastonbury, the main discussion among 180,000 festival goers is the mud. There's always something to say about it. Texture, for instance: at times it's little more than a sloppy cake mixture, mid-calf deep; others it's thick and clingy like soggy sand, hanging to your wellies and slowing you down. But apart from the mud, I'm happy to confirm that the next top topic to infiltrate the site is green not brown.
Glastonbury has always been linked to green matters and social awareness. In the Eighties, it teamed up with CND; more recently, it spawned the famously eco conscious festival The Big Green Gathering. For the past few years, it has made £1 million for charities. This year it's Greenpeace, Water  Aid and Oxfam, all of which have a significant presence across the site. But Glastonbury 2007, more than any other, has seen an almighty green push.

Festival goers are being encouraged to sign up for the i-count campaign, encouraging people to take small steps to save the planet. See here for more info. At last count, Michael Eavis announced that 50,000 signatures had been collected. Between concerts, vast screens remind people to "Change a Light Bulb, not our Climate". Everywhere are reminders of the need for environmental action, from the life-size elephant made from recycled milk cartons in the Healing Fields, to the numerous stalls devoted to renewable energy in the Green Futures field.
As for the rubbish generated by the festival, you are never far from clusters of bins collecting food waste and plates and cutlery (all of which are compostable) in one, cans and bottles in another, along with all other waste in a third.  If I had one niggle it would be that I haven't seen a scrap of the promised recycled loo paper - have you? Having obediently followed instructions from the organizers not to bring my own because Nouvelle was providing loo roll for all, I have had an unpleasantly paper-less time here. What happened there? Otherwise, well done to Glastonbury for pushing green messages galore. If festival goers haven't arrived with an interest in the environment, there's a good chance that they will take something away when they leave.

Comments

[Dimitris Damdimopoulos]

Why must the poor to middle income of this country be held down and punished by excessive, non-transparent, counter economic charging programmes by the UK government under the guise of green environmental programmes for our benefit.

In fact you might as well just rename them disadvantaging taxes on the disadvantaged.

[GreenDemon]

I was there too. Very impressed by bins and Greenpeace field - best place for food too. Very unimpressed by how everyone left their camping gear behind. That's not very green.

[GitaK]

Going to a festival is fine if you go to a small festival, where it is easy to get public transport and the energy needed for the music is not so big. Glastonbury is not such a feastival though, don't you think?

[rob D]

And what about the environmental impact of a major mud bath being created on the british landscape? It will take a long time for the land and the local area to recover from this.

[Gregg]

I agree with Eco-Worrier.
At festivals like Glastonbury, you are likely to come away more awareness of environmental problems. To spend weekends camping in a field is better than spending money on the high street or burning fossil fuels in your home. You are out in the elements and you will learn something about the natural world, I would hope.

[B-Grrrrl]

In response to Greendemon's comments, campers were encouraged to leave their tents as they were to be donated to 3rd world charities.

[Joseph Uddin]

The free toilet roll could be found to the side of the passenger gates. I only passed through Gate C so I can't say for certain about the other ones, but you walked to the left of the entry gate tyo find a mountain of recyclable loo roll.

Regarding the comments about the festival itself not ecologically friendly, one of the stages sound system was completely solar powered, and the lighting used less wattage than 3 100 watt light bulbs. The main stages would be less eco friendly, but I think the plusses, the amount of awareness it brings (especially from the Leftfield tent) more than makes up for the few negatives.

[Minum]

I found plenty of the loo rolls at the entrance gates, and all the info points.

If I look at my total carbon usage for the 6 days I was at Glasto, even taking into account driving there, and the energy used for sound systems, lighting etc, it still has to be less than living my normal life, as I did no cooking, no hot water etc etc

[Vicki]

Big Green Gathering is as Green as festivals get, everything is solar and wind powered. It's been going since 1994 so a lot of the Green initiatives that other festis are now taking have probably been copied from the BGG. There's all the things you'd expect from a festival, but on a family friendly scale. Also, as it's on at the start of August hopefully the sun will have come out by then!

[Ana Maria]

KadmusArts has assembled a list of green festivals as well as environmental resources for festival organizers and fans. Check it out at:

http://kadmusarts.com/blog/?page_id=287