Was This The Dirtiest Glastonbury Ever?

Two weeks and a cleanup operation later, the festival grounds still remain cluttered. 

It has been almost two weeks since Glastonbury ended but the cleanup that followed is still going on. According to the Glastonbury Free Press, this year’s attendees left 500,000 sacks of rubbish, 57 tonnes of reusable items and 1,022 tonnes of recycling on the 1,000-acre site. About 95% of the rubbish will probably be cleared by the end of this week, including the phones, driving licences and debit cards that are still being found and – hopefully – reunited with their owners.

An army of volunteers and employees have been recruited to deal with this rubbish and none of them seem to be too happy about it. An angry volunteer recently posted a video online of the site in its present condition and you have to watch it to really understand the impact the festival has on the environment around it.

Showing a sea of tents, blow-up beds, and other such large items left for workers to clean up, in the video’s description the man says that it shows “how lazy about 1/4 of them are,” adding: “It’s an insult to all the festival workers.” Everyone who attends the festival is made to sign the “Love The Farm, Leave No Trace’ pledge that forbids them to litter, urinate on the grounds and asks them to make sure that they take all of their belongings home with them. It seems no one followed these rules, just like every year.

There is a silver lining here though and it is the fact that all the camping gear and tents that are left behind will be donated to refugees.