DW: Around 100,000 people attended Reading Festival in the UK last weekend. This is what they left behind.
Yes, the tents were apparently also abandoned as they can be bought cheap and nobody cares. All that goes to landfill or gets burned.
If any of the people listed under
https://www.readingfestival.com/lineup
hold environmentalist views, now would probably an appropriate time to voice them, directed at their fanbase.
I don't it would be too difficult for the bands to say "hey people, pack your tents and take them back".
I'm afraid however that it's not very much in the interest of the organisers who very likely follow a "people come here to relax" logic.
@kravietz @guenther here in Germany you played a deposit and got a big trashbag and when you returned it filled up after the festival you got back 5-10€. That worked really good. If you did not cause trash you collected the one from your neighbors.
But indeed it will not work if it is too cheap and increasing the price punishes the poor...
I used to live almost on the doorstep of Reading Festival (it takes place in the smaller suburb of Caversham) for about 30 years of my life. The whole thing has been an ecological and safeguarding disaster for decades, it already costs nearly 300€ for a full ticket, so the poor are already priced out. also many positive LFT Covid tests were thrown in the gutters outside the venue, as people who have spent so much won't turn back..
TBH the official statement being given about the 20 year olds death was she already had a pre-existing serious (and likely life limiting) medical condition (so attending the festival could literally have been a "bucket list" item), but I am concerned about Covid 19 being spread through the 6th forms and colleges of many different areas (as the kids who do get it aren't likely to keel over but it can have really unpleasant medium/long term effects)
@kravietz @vfrmedia @guenther outch