The major clean-up required after the annual festival hit the headlines in 2017, when it was revealed the rubbish left by revellers cost a staggering £785,000 to remove.
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Massive clean-up
Up to 2,500 volunteers helped remove the waste left by 200,000 festival-goers at Worthy Farm, near Pilton, during the five-day event.
Tractors were deployed to bring in the waste to be sorted into different types. Eight picking lines were set up on-site, where workers had to manually sort through the rubbish. Tonnes of waste was binned, while as much as possible was sent for recycling, during the massive clean-up operation, which lasted six weeks.
Pleas from the organisers that festival-goers should take their own rubbish away with them and leave zero waste fell on deaf ears.
The event wasn't held in 2018, due to the state of the farm, after organisers dealt with the aftermath of the 2017 festival. At the last Glastonbury Festival two years ago, vendors at the site were asked not to use plastic bags for their goods to limit the environmental impact.
Posters around the venue read, "Love the farm - leave no trace," and the festival promoted a recycling message. More than 500 food vendors on the site were told they must provide compostable cutlery, plates and cups, and glass was banned at the event.
Plastic hazards
After taking a year off, the organisers are hoping their ban on plastic bottles in 2019 will further help stop the piles of rubbish being left at Worthy Farm, which is a working dairy farm.
Environmental campaigners are fighting an ongoing battle with single-use plastic because of the harm it's causing to the planet. Between eight and 12 million tonnes of plastic is dumped in our oceans globally every year.
We currently produce more than 300 million tons of plastic annually and 50% of this is for single use, according to the environmental organisation, Plastic Oceans. This means it's used for just a few moments, but when carelessly dumped in our seas, it can take hundreds of years to decompose, leaving a trail of dead marine life and birds in its wake.
Greenpeace advises that the best way to avoid plastic pollution is to cut down on the unnecessary use of plastics - such as the bottles of water and soft drinks that are being sold at music festivals. Revellers at Glastonbury 2017 left around one million plastic bottles, so organisers feel the only way forward is to stop selling plastic drinks bottles altogether.
Alternative drinks
People wishing to drink water are invited to bring their own reusable bottle, which they can refill for free at one of the hundreds of taps dotted around the site. The mains supply at the festival is provided by Bristol Water and will be of the same quality as the water people get from their taps at home.
Festival organisers have also teamed up with the charity WaterAid, who will be providing kiosks where people can refill their bottles. You will also be able to ask for glasses of free drinking water at all of the bars across the site. In addition, canned Life Water and soft drinks will be on sale from all the traders who used to sell soft drinks in plastic bottles.
Following the 2017 festival, nearly 45 tonnes of aluminium cans were recycled. Glastonbury provided its own on-site recycling centre to manage the job and the organisers are hoping the number will increase this year as a result of their latest initiative.
Make a difference
Organisers have stopped short of banning the public from bringing their own plastic bottles on to the site, although they are advising them to bring as little single-use plastic as possible. They say even one person making a small change can make a difference to the planet as a whole - they are promoting the message, "It's now or never," when it comes to reversing the damage being done to the earth.
Here at Solent Plastics, we practice a responsible environmental ethic. Recognising how important it is to preserve the planet for future generations, we promote recycling and the responsible use of plastic products.
We stock a range of Euronorm ECO recycled plastic Euro containers made from recycled polypropylene that are suitable for industrial, commercial and domestic use.
We also stock recycling waste bins to help schools, businesses and organisations run their own recycling initiatives.