Following the results of a damning new survey on the issue, the campaigners have teamed up with Buckinghamshire New University to call on festival organisers to help affect revellers' behaviours and attitudes to waste.
In total, 60 percent of the 1,200 survey respondents admitted to discarding tents at festivals, with 36 percent unsure if their behaviour would ever change. A further 35 percent said they would never change.
Despite this, 86 percent of festival goers surveyed recognised that waste has a negative impact on the environment at festivals.
Love Your Tent and Bucks New University said that, given over 6.5 million people last year attended a festival or live music event in the UK alone, the scale of camping waste andabandoned tents was enormous, growing and needed to be addressed immediately.
They are now calling on all UK festivals to sign up to a pledge to cut campsite waste by 10 percent this year.
Teresa Moore, a leading sustainable event management/festival expert and head of department, music & event management at the university, said: ‘Through our research we wanted to put some data behind the annual media coverage of campsite waste at festivals. What we found confirms a growing problem which is not confined just to the UK.
'As tent prices continue to fall, more cheap tents are discarded at festivals. It’s time for retailers to take their share of their responsibility and work with event organisers to tackle this problem.’
Juliet Ross-Kelly, founder of Love Your Tent, added: ‘Thanks to the great support and work by Bucks we can see how much work still needs to be done to encourage a change in audience behaviour.
By targeting festivals to reduce their campsite waste by 10 percent year on year we are leading a change that will help to protect festival culture for future generations and from the work that we’ve done with the Isle of Wight Festival, we know it’s achievable.’
Isle of Wight Festival organiser, John Giddings, who has helped the event raise awareness of the issue among punters, added: ‘Audiences leaving stuff behind is an issue us organisers have been dealing with for many years and the Bucks survey shows it’s a worsening problem.
‘Supporting the Love Your Tent campaign has allowed us to offer a real alternative for campers who are fed up with wading through waste to get to and from their tents each day. We know there is a real market for a sustainable camping experience and we want to be at the forefront of that change.’
In total, 60 percent of the 1,200 survey respondents admitted to discarding tents at festivals, with 36 percent unsure if their behaviour would ever change. A further 35 percent said they would never change.
Despite this, 86 percent of festival goers surveyed recognised that waste has a negative impact on the environment at festivals.
Love Your Tent and Bucks New University said that, given over 6.5 million people last year attended a festival or live music event in the UK alone, the scale of camping waste andabandoned tents was enormous, growing and needed to be addressed immediately.
They are now calling on all UK festivals to sign up to a pledge to cut campsite waste by 10 percent this year.
Teresa Moore, a leading sustainable event management/festival expert and head of department, music & event management at the university, said: ‘Through our research we wanted to put some data behind the annual media coverage of campsite waste at festivals. What we found confirms a growing problem which is not confined just to the UK.
'As tent prices continue to fall, more cheap tents are discarded at festivals. It’s time for retailers to take their share of their responsibility and work with event organisers to tackle this problem.’
Juliet Ross-Kelly, founder of Love Your Tent, added: ‘Thanks to the great support and work by Bucks we can see how much work still needs to be done to encourage a change in audience behaviour.
By targeting festivals to reduce their campsite waste by 10 percent year on year we are leading a change that will help to protect festival culture for future generations and from the work that we’ve done with the Isle of Wight Festival, we know it’s achievable.’
Isle of Wight Festival organiser, John Giddings, who has helped the event raise awareness of the issue among punters, added: ‘Audiences leaving stuff behind is an issue us organisers have been dealing with for many years and the Bucks survey shows it’s a worsening problem.
‘Supporting the Love Your Tent campaign has allowed us to offer a real alternative for campers who are fed up with wading through waste to get to and from their tents each day. We know there is a real market for a sustainable camping experience and we want to be at the forefront of that change.’
