Glastonbury: music and throw-away plastics don’t mix

United Kingdom – Organisers of the UK’s biggest music gathering, the Glastonbury Festival, say an ‘enormous project’ is under way to completely phase out disposable plastic bottles when the event returns to the hills of Somerset next summer.

A total plastic bottle ban is ‘the big thing’ for the June 2019 edition of the renowned festival, according to event organiser Emily Eavis. In previous years, close to 1 million plastic bottles have been discarded at Glastonbury, she affirms.

Taking sustainability to the next level is requiring substantial manpower and intense discussions, Eavis acknowledges. For instance, a clean-up crew of 1300 volunteers was hired last year to help collect waste for recycling left by an estimated 200 000 festival attendees.

Back in 2014, the festival introduced ‘water kiosks’ where festival-goers could get any type of bottle refilled. It is hoped that eliminating single-use plastic bottles from the equation will significantly reduce waste at the increasingly ‘green’ music gathering, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2020.