Going green at Glastonbury… how hard can it really be?

With festival-goers urged to ditch single-use plastics and limit their waste, Charlotte Lytton joins those putting the ‘worthy’ into Worthy Farm

‘Are you regretting your choices?” It is 27 degrees and, as sun floods Castle Cary station in south Somerset, where I am standing armed with the 1.5 x 1m sheet of cardboard I’m due to be sleeping in for the next four nights, the answer is, unequivocally, yes.

While a paper tent is likely not the living quarters of choice for most festivalgoers (this one included), it is the most planet-friendly way to pitch up at Glastonbury, the music behemoth that has been held on Worthy Farm more than 30 times since 1970, and is this year more determined than ever to bleed green.

For the first time, single-use plastics are out, which means revellers can only buy drinks in cans (water is £1.80 a pop) or cardboard packaging; ketchup sachets at food vans are verboten, with pumps to be used in their place; and it’s compostable-only as far as vendors’ crockery goes. Organisers have urged that non-biodegradable face wipes and glitter are left at home in a bid to more fully than ever embrace the festival’s pledge to “leave no trace”.

In its inaugural year, the celebration, founded by Michael Eavis and now co-run by his daughter, Emily, released 1,500 tickets: now, that number equates to the volunteers who, having already bought their passes, signed up to assist with the clear-up when this patch of Somerset waves off its

200,000 visitors tomorrow. There are hundreds more unofficially pitching in: at 7am on Friday, when the fields were all but empty, I found 42-year-old Aaron mid-litter-pick, having grabbed a few refuse bags to get tidying.

“I’m just helping,” he says, spurred on by the knowledge “there are some festivals where it’s spotless after people leave, so it can be done if everyone pulls their weight”. This is his 22nd time at the festival; he has found some areas “messier”, which he puts down to the juggernaut it has become.

Glastonbury is enormous, a sprawling 900-acre dairy farm with its own sewerage system and hospital, as well as the largest temporary, privately owned recycling facility in Europe (during the festival). In 2017, the last time it took place, detritus produced by the five-day event included 1million plastic bottles and 45million cans; it leaves behind an estimated 2,000 tons of waste every time.

Thirty-seven-year-old Anna, face flecked with biodegradable glitter, recently attended an Extinction Rebellion meeting after watching a Sir David Attenborough documentary on the state of the planet. “Climate scientists are saying one in nine people could be displaced from their homes if we don’t do anything,” she says.

But while festivalgoers mostly agree that the switch to refillable bottles is a good move, organisers still have work to do to smooth the transition. In some areas of the campsite, attendees – dozens of whom have been treated for heatstroke – have waited 20 minutes or longer to get water from the 850 on-site taps.

Tents are among the eco offenders: a quarter of a million are ditched at UK festivals annually, last year creating 875 tons of plastic waste – equivalent in weight to eight blue whales. “Any item that’s left here just to be thrown away is shameful,” remonstrates Alexia Loundras, part of the sustainability team. “A tent should not be singleuse,” she adds, citing that budget supermarket options (a four-man tent can be acquired for less than £30) mean people are more willing to leave them for landfill.

“We have this disposable culture we’re wrapped up in,” Loundras says, which is “not acceptable. Our planet cannot take it.”

Which is why I have been sleeping at the festival in a newly launched REELtent, “the only truly plastic-free” one of its kind, according to its creators. It is hardly the epitome of – or even adjacent to – comfort: it’s sturdier than you might think, and less of an insect-magnet than plastic kinds (though perhaps flies turning up their noses is a warning sign), but takes me and three quasi-willing helpers to decipher the instructions. When it’s up, I’m still not convinced that this, or KarTent, another cardboard tent company hoping to go mainstream, can appeal to anyone beyond the most diehard eco warriors.

My cardboard tent weighs 12kg. Lugging it from the train to the shuttle to the campsite itself, I lost track of the raised eyebrows en route. “Have you been to Ikea?” one steward chipped in, while fellow campers opted for variations of “It’s a tent? Made of cardboard? How weird…”

REELtent has sold 1,000 of its one-man options (price dependent on whether you get it customised) and will soon have a two-man version on sale: it’s a far cry from the other options available at Glastonbury, such as the Pop-Up hotel, the “ultimate in glamping accommodation” with double beds, a hot tub and room service, which costs up to £25,000 for 10 over the festival weekend.

No such add-ons in my cardboard palace, which I kit out with an organic sleeping bag, the Nordisk Almond +10 (the cotton it is farmed from is pesticide-free), a rucksack from Original Mountain Marathon, which advises national parks on how to use wild spaces, and am carting water around in a reusable bottle from S’well, the “original hydration accessory” brand seeking to stop the use of 100million plastic bottles by 2020. Julia Roberts and Ellen DeGeneres use them.

My Veja eco-sneakers, made from Thinking out of the box: Charlotte Lytton with her eco products at Glastonbury recycled plastic and wild rubber, are equally beloved by the A-list, worn by everyone from the Duchess of Cambridge to Emma Watson. Along with these, I try walking boots by Vivobarefoot, whose goal is to create shoes that have “zero impact on the planet”, clothes from the eco-conscious lines of high-street shops H&M and Weekday, alongside those from smaller ethical brands including Know the Origin and Iden. My toiletries come from Full Circle, which this year began making a festival kit due to growing demand, which includes a bamboo toothbrush and recycled loo paper; 2,000 sets have been purchased by Glastonbury attendees.

Preparation here is key: many of these producers are the antithesis to fast fashion, sourcing materials locally and sustainably, which means they are small, unable to contend with the demand for biodegradable garb at very short notice. But for customers willing to navigate the biggest challenge most of us have in going green – convenience – I quickly learn that some swaps are simple (namely, clothes and shoes), while the tents and toiletries take more getting used to. As does the wooden cutlery, as I learn to my cost when a gust of wind whips my fork out of my vegan dinner with such force that an optimistically worn pair of (organic) white shorts are immediately ruined.

Vegan fare is sold at plenty of the 400 food stands, but it’s not as if the offerings from Somerset Hog Roast, Sausage and Crêpe hut or the Seafood Shack are going unloved: Sam, a 36-year-old stagehand, admits he has been trying to cut his meat consumption, encouraged by the effects of animal farming on our atmosphere – yet I find him in a shady spot, merrily scoffing a burger between acts. “I like the taste of meat too much,” he says with a grin.

Sales have slowed at the milk stand, but that’s not down to veganism, says 72-year-old Maurice, who is in charge today, but because making non-plastic packaging, as the festival organisers stipulated this year, “turned out to be a very expensive exercise”, and prices have had to be pushed up to cover costs. Customers have been asking, he explains, why they can’t buy milk in plastic bottles: he tells them “it’s Emily’s way of trying to promote the plastic-free universe”. Which “people do appreciate, I think”; he mulls for a moment. “Sales will pick up.”

It seems even at Glastonbury, it’s not easy being green.

‘My cardboard tent weighs 12 kilos. I must lug it from the station to the camp myself’

‘Dozens have been treated for heatstroke after queuing for drinking water’