How to ramp up your recycling at Reading Festival
If there’s one thing we learnt from 2018 and David Attenborough it’s that plastic bags are bad and fatbergs are a real thing. Since it’s #recycleweek we’re here to tell you about five of the schemes we have in place at Reading Festival to ensure we’re looking after the environment, while having the time of our lives.
Energy Revolution donations
The main contributor of carbon emissions at festivals is travel, which accounts for 70% of a festival’s carbon footprint. That’s why at Reading Festival we introduced carbon balancing to our car and motorcycle parking prices.
£1 of the cost of your parking passes was donated to the charity Energy Revolution, who invest in renewable energy projects.
Car sharing
Car sharing not only helps you save money but also reduces the amount of traffic on the roads, helping the environment. Sounds like a winner to us. 95% of people travelling by car to Reading 2018 had more than 2 people in their car, so let’s keep it up.
Three-bin waste strategy system
We hear you, it’s not the first thing you notice when you walk into the Main Arena, but all this is implemented for a reason – saving the planet! Using our three-bin system is easy, check what you can and can’t place into each bin below:
Compost – When you buy food from the traders, everything your food comes in is compostable so plates, cutlery and napkins can be placed in the compost bins along with the food scraps. Please make sure no plastic goes into the compost.
Recycle – Plastic bottles, aluminium cans, newspapers, magazines and clean and dry cardboard (no used greasy pizza boxes as these do not recycle).
General Waste – There should be minimal left over that goes into General Waste.
We recycled an incredible 68% of our waste in 2017, so thank you to everyone who used the recycling points in the campsites and the three-bin system in the Main Arena.
Cup and bottle deposit schemes
If you noticed people collecting cups over the weekend and wondered why, we’ve got the answer. Our cup and bottle recycling deposit scheme saw all plastic bottles and cups bought have a 10p refundable deposit.
Collecting 10 cups and bottles meant you could bag a whole £1 to put towards another pint or snack. If you collected 1 full recycling bag of bottles, you’d get £5 in hard earned cash.
All of this helps us reduce the 12.7 million tonnes of plastic that enters the oceans every year. To put it into perspective, that’s a truck load of rubbish every minute. In 2017, you returned a humungous 250,000 plastic bottles and cups. Thank you for helping us reduce single-use plastic.
Nifty Recycling Points
If you’re coming to the festival with your own tent, please take it, along with any other camping equipment home with you. Tents left in the field can end up in landfill or incineration – which isn’t what anyone wants, is it?
Each year Nifty recycling points are located in the campsites, these will accept any broken or unwanted tent chairs, gazebos, empty batteries and unopened tins of food.
If you do want to donate your tent to charity, please take it home to your local charity shop.
Thank you for recycling with us over the years, your cooperation allows us to become a greener festival and we couldn’t do it without you.