This year’s Glastonbury Festival attracted 175,000 revellers. Once the tents were packed up and the final festival goers went back to their day jobs, operation clean up was being orchestrated.

For once it wasn’t mud they had to wade through, here’s some stark figures on just how much waste can be generated in an enclosed area and why the clean-up procedure will take up to six weeks before Somerset can reclaim it’s beautiful fully functional farm back.  In the meantime 1,300 recycling volunteers have been helping to pick up the discarded bottles, cans and packets left in the 900 acre site.

The Glastonbury clean-up in numbers:

• 6 weeks to clean up the 900 acre site
• 5,487 toilets to take away
• 1,300 recycling volunteers to clear up the site
• 15,000 oil drum bins to be emptied
• 160 skips on the site to be emptied
• £780,000 estimated cost of disposing all the rubbish left at the festival
• Roughly 6,500 sleeping bags, 9,500 roll mats, 3,500 air beds and 400 gazebos were abandoned in 2009
• 863.32 tonnes of waste was recycled in 2008, including:
• 193.98 tonnes of composed organic waste
• 40 tonnes of chipped wood
• 54 tonnes of cans and plastic bottles
• 41 tonnes of cardboard

Source: The Independent

That’s a lot of waste.  Glastonbury Festival recognises that running the event at Worthy Farm has a direct impact (both positive and negative) on the environment. The festival is committed to enhancing the environment through operations wherever possible, and minimising any negative impact.

The festival also commits to maintaining the rich and diverse environment that has evolved through alternative land usage. Holding a festival once a year in the middle of the growing season prevents the use of environmentally damaging conventional farming practices which would have a more intrusive impact on the ecology.

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GPT Waste have provided waste management solutions to a number of festivals and events throughout the UK.

For more information about the services provided, click here.