Rock ’n’ recycle ...festivals join war on plastic

BRITAIN’S biggest music festivals are joining the war on single-use plastic this summer.

Glastonbury is among dozens that have vowed not to sell drinks in plastic bottles. Some 65 festivals have pledged to eliminate single-use plastic items on their sites altogether by 2021.

UK music festivals produce 23,500 tons of rubbish every year, two-thirds of which goes straight to landfill.

Glastonbury alone got through 1.3million plastic bottles in 2017, with revellers leaving litter-strewn fields in their wake.

But this year they will not be sold by any of its bars or food vans, or supplied backstage for artists.

Festival-goers will not be stopped from bringing plastic bottles, but are being urged to take a reusable one and refill it at any of hundreds of free taps and water kiosks around the Somerset site.

Organiser Emily Eavis said: ‘It’s paramount for our planet that we all reduce our plastic consumption.

‘We’ve already cut out plastic crockery, cutlery, straws, sauce sachets, non-biodegradable glitter and this is the next step.’

All 65 members of the Association of Independent Festivals have pledged to rid their sites of single-use plastics by 2021. In the first year of the campaign last summer, two-fifths of these events banned the sale of single-use plastic drinks bottles.

The same proportion replaced single-use plastic cups with reusable ones. An overwhelming 93 per cent ditched plastic straws, while two-thirds sold reusable drinks bottles. Shambala Festival in Northamptonshire was hailed as one of the best at reducing plastic waste in the first year of the campaign.

It has a site-wide ban on the sale of plastic drinks bottles and organisers say 95 per cent of their audiences already bring their own reusable water bottle.

Boardmasters festival in Cornwall also introduced a reusable cup scheme, cutting the number of cups on the site by 200,000. Association of Independent Festivals boss Paul Reed said: ‘By working together as an industry and taking action, we can make a tangible difference.’

A staggering 548,055 people have committed to taking part in the Great British Spring Clean, which ends on Tuesday. For more information or to take part this weekend, go to gbspringclean.org.