It's easy to point the finger at festival-goers for abandoning their tents. They're certainly not blameless - but let's not let the organisers off the hook, again.
Aug 30, 2023·edited Aug 30, 2023Liked by Rob Greenland
Thanks for this Rob. And when folk say the cost of the clear up is already included in the ticket and it will all be cleared up in a couple of days they really are missing the point. This stuff doesn't just disappear. It gets incinerated, or sent or landfill and the plastics and pollutants stay with us for many years. The 'single use' and 'throwaway' ethics are a large part of the problem. Whether its vapes or tents we need to focus less on how we clear up the mess and more on how we prevent it. Which means education and perhaps a shift in societal values. It is not ok to make a horrible mess and to leave crap lying around as long as you can pay for your mess to be cleared up.
Yes you're right Mike - and people are encouraged to think this way by, for example, the festival organisers who, encouraged by their waste contractors, proudly proclaim "zero waste to landfill" - which everyone knows sounds really positive to a casual observer, as if there's a group of people hand-sorting everything that's been thrown away to work out what's best for each item. But in reality this most likely means "much of what you throw away ends up being incinerated" - particularly, as you suggest, when much of what is being discarded as a festival is very difficult to reuse or recycle. Alongside the mistaken belief that your discarded tent will be "given to refugees", (a small proportion - those that under-resourced volunteers manage to collect, will be) communication around waste management can end up making things worse, not better.
Thanks for this Rob. And when folk say the cost of the clear up is already included in the ticket and it will all be cleared up in a couple of days they really are missing the point. This stuff doesn't just disappear. It gets incinerated, or sent or landfill and the plastics and pollutants stay with us for many years. The 'single use' and 'throwaway' ethics are a large part of the problem. Whether its vapes or tents we need to focus less on how we clear up the mess and more on how we prevent it. Which means education and perhaps a shift in societal values. It is not ok to make a horrible mess and to leave crap lying around as long as you can pay for your mess to be cleared up.
Yes you're right Mike - and people are encouraged to think this way by, for example, the festival organisers who, encouraged by their waste contractors, proudly proclaim "zero waste to landfill" - which everyone knows sounds really positive to a casual observer, as if there's a group of people hand-sorting everything that's been thrown away to work out what's best for each item. But in reality this most likely means "much of what you throw away ends up being incinerated" - particularly, as you suggest, when much of what is being discarded as a festival is very difficult to reuse or recycle. Alongside the mistaken belief that your discarded tent will be "given to refugees", (a small proportion - those that under-resourced volunteers manage to collect, will be) communication around waste management can end up making things worse, not better.
I’m with Zizek. Those of us that profess to care about the environment need to spend less time ‘in nature’ and more time contemplating our own sh1t!
https://youtu.be/5nT_po2E-kA?si=mZ7z0qV4uzp83z0_