Glastonbury tents

[firecrest]

With an estimated 10,000 tents left behind and countless cooking and other camping gear, is anyone going down after the revellers leave and grabbing any stuff?
Lots of charities now salvage tents, but people are asked to pull them down, pack them away and leave them at drop off points, so the majority are still left standing and presumably going to landfill.

Im not entirely sure people are allowed to simply go and get them, but I shouldnt see why not. has anyone any plans to do this? (it wouldnt be worth my petrol money!)

[w00dsmoke]

Lets be honest here, most tents that will be left will be cheap almost disposable tents or old tents that folk have written off thereby not worth having for multiple trips if you intend to salvage any.

I'm amazed at folks selling old tents as the material weakens so much under uv light and rips to shreds under stress.

[Mikey P]

I would hope that any tents/gear left behind are collected up and given to the charities that provide stuff for earthquake victims - that would seem to me to be the right thing to do.

Failing that, it should be first come, first served!!! With all the reviews and stuff written on pop-up tents on BCUK over the last couple of weeks, we should put a bus on.

[Shambling Shaman]

If someone wants to pick me up and drop me off.......................

[chickenofthewoods]

Practically all of the useable tents and other items are salvaged wherever possible by clear up crews who tender for the contract to do so. It's not a free for all I'm afraid. I know this because our charity looked into the process of tendering and recycling for this year's festival.

[stooboy]

There is always T in the Park in scotland. I have wondered it it would be possible to get a few of those abandoned tents and make a TeePee from it...

However, some of the tents are not left purely cos they are cheap, you may find a unpleasant surprise inside, especially since most the Portaloos are minging people use the tent as a loo just before they go save waiting in the toilet Que. Also used condoms and vomit, I think id give it a miss to be honest.


Stoo.

[firecrest]

Practically all of the useable tents and other items are salvaged wherever possible by clear up crews who tender for the contract to do so. It's not a free for all I'm afraid. I know this because our charity looked into the process of tendering and recycling for this year's festival.

So its all salvaged? crap. I wouldnt mind but I know that most of the stuff taken by charities , or donated to them, still isnt used. I think its something like 70% of what goes to charity shops has to be binned.

[Aaron]

Depends if you want to wade through the layer of assorted detrius and filth that covers the site after the festival. I went one year and found it absolutely squalid bags of rotting food, human waste and broken glass and tinnies left lying around. We woke up the second day to find someone had had a dump just outside the entrance to our tent lovely Discarded metal tent pegs have been the biggest problem to the organisers in recent years as they get broken up when the landowner tops the fields in August/September and end up in the sileage which gets fed to the cows. Livestock die on the farm there each year just because people cant be bothered to pack up and take their s*** home with them. I have been to a couple of music festivals on the continent which (seemed) totally different, very little rubbish and discarded stuff left lying about. What is it with us Brits?

[chickenofthewoods]

Well, in theory, yes. I can't speak for other charities and what they might do with them, but our intention had been to clean & re-sell those that were on good condition and to sort & recycle the materials from those that were beyond repair. Unfortunately in the end prior commitments to other development projects took precedence so we scrapped the idea (for now anyway).

It's a bit of a lottery though as you can imagine - if the weather were to be as awful as last year, then coping with huge numbers of sodden tents would be quite task so I can understand why some do go into landfill in the end. Not to mention what some folks do in them.....

[Zammo]

A company has started making bio-degradable tent pegs now, but getting everyone to use them would be almost impossible.

[Tony]

I believe that it's decomposable tent pegs at Glastonbury these days, made of potato starch.

On the tent thing, It would be great if a few of you locals offered to go and pack up the tents for the charities/site, that would be a great bit of service, you could decide on whihc ones are worth it and whihc ones should be chucked. Bit late now I know, but an idea.

I wonder how the decomposable tents went at the event, can't remember the name of them...

[Bodge]

Our local rotary club gave our scout troop some tents from 'V' festival last year.
Unfortunately out of the 5 we had only 1 was complete and the others had the wrong poles etc.the rest ended up being split for spares and binned. Apparently all the tents were taken down and piled up together then people grabbed bits of poles and tents to make complete sets. It was a great gesture and the one tent we had was great, but I feel it was a shame about the rest and an awful waste.

Bodge

[Mikey P]

There is always T in the Park in scotland. I have wondered it it would be possible to get a few of those abandoned tents and make a TeePee from it...

Stoo.

TeePee in the Park?

[featherstick]

It may be worth a charity recycling the materials for a fee.

It's absolutely NOT worth salvaging tents to send to earthquake or whatever victims. They would almost certainly be unsuitable for the purpose, and cost more to store and transport than buying properly-specced ones immediately after the disaster.

When I worked at the Red Cross we were often asked whether we wanted a load of cast-offs for flood or earthquake victims. The answer was always "No. We want your money. We can move it easier and quicker, and buy locally what is necessary for the area.' Some people couldn't get the arguments and got very arsy.

[Mikey P]

OK. So we burn the lot! Yay!

[fast but dim]

i bet if you had a good look round you'd find loads of drugs!!!

[redandshane]

I was there(lol)
and the original poster is absolutely right there is an unbelievable amount of ahem foraging opportunities
The theory ie you leave unwanted tents standing with doors open
While this was happening I also saw dozens of tents and other gear simply thrown on rubbish bins or collapsed and even worse beng burnt
Personally I was leaving on foot so I only got a beach /anglers shelter with poles and bag ,a portable stool, one of those plastic backed fold up travel rugs, a cagoule/windshirt numerous cheap green plastic ponchos,some biodegradable pegs(unused),a lightweight sleeping mat which will hopefully fit my dutch bivi bag
I wish I had time to have collected guy ropes off tents thrown in rubbish but I was getting weighed down
This sport is known as tatting and is very popular with Scotsmen and foraging bands of pseudo urchins
Oh yeah and there were some bushcraft stands up in the craft area so all in all it was good weekend
Back to work now though!!!

[Tadpole]

I was there(lol)
and the original poster is absolutely right there is an unbelievable amount of ahem foraging opportunities

Sadly there were several hundred case of early "foraging opportunities" taken by people who wouldn't couldn't wait. A few of my work mates had some of their gear removed from their tents as they slept.

[Bodge]

Sadly there were several hundred case of early "foraging opportunities" taken by people who wouldn't couldn't wait. A few of my work mates had some of their gear removed from their tents as they slept.

I had my tent slashed open in 1992 at glasto, I had all my stuff stolen including a 4 d cell maglite.In its place was a tobacco tin of grass a mini bong and some hemp rizlas

Imagine me explaining that to the

I packed up a day early as I didn't fancy a night in the open field. Although I enjoyed it at Glasto I had an uneasy feeling all the time I was there, there were quite a few brutal muggings and an incident of gunfire iirc.

Bodge

[moonvisage]

A very good idea for these festival organisers,would be to contact a couple of local metal detecting clubs in the area,and ask them to search for missing tent pegs etc,once the festival is over,and the bulk of the junk has been removed.metal detector clubs are usually only to pleased to help out with things like that,and usually do it for free.they take it as an opportunity to try and discover older,more interesting artifacts.

[stooboy]

I thought the thrill behind metal detecting was not knowing what was beneath.

can picture it now..

BEEP BEEP

what u got....

Tent peg...... AGAIN..

[Tengu]

I would imagine that there would be so many as to render this impractical.

[william#]

apparently yes stuff is left behind but your right most of it if not all is complete rubbish
never been myself but have been told by people who have stayed by for the clear up

[firecrest]

ok I get the picture - nowts free in this world

[Jared]

I thought Global Hand organised the tent collections, as part of their Give Me Shelter campaign.

[Grooveski]

Last year I was a bit freaked by the whole festival campsite horror story and only wombled a few kip mats that I gave to friends afterwards(half decent dual-layer ones).
This year I'm going with a shopping list.

More mats. A couple for kip mat duty, a couple to glue down in the canoes, one to chop up for garden kneel mats and if my pals can handle carrying them a dozen or so thin ones to make a new archery target.
Maybe some poles for crossbow bolts like the ones ffish posted a while back.
Material for a lightweight spraydeck for the wee canoe. Started one before but the material was too bulky - for all I'll ever need it one made out of tent nylon will probably do.
The makings for something like this, again for the Pack. There's no way I can run to the cost of a real one.
A light sleeping bag or two to botch an underblanket from.
A groundsheet or two to use as knapping tarps.

Sounds like a lot but I don't expect to have to walk more than 50 foot or so from my tent on monday morning to gather it. It really is amazing the number of folk who just dump everything when they leave.
I wouldn't trash tents that look like they may be of use to charities. No need to, a good proportion of them get trashed over the weekend anyway and like others have said there are bedraggled remnants all over the place.