This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
EVENT CLEAN-UPS


Every summer, thousands upon thousands of us swap the day job and the relative comforts of home for sleeping in tents, drinking warm cans of lager and using less than pleasant (to put it mildly) toilet facilities as festival fever takes hold. Whether it be Somerset’s iconic Glastonbury, T in the Park, Reading or Leeds Festival, or one of the hundreds of smaller festivals up and down the country, it seems that more and more of us are heading out each summer for weekends of music and merriment.


But with more visitors come more supplies. More drinks cans and food packaging, disposable barbecues, tents, camping chairs and so on. And while every festival will try to encourage guests to clean up after themselves (Glastonbury has a long-running ‘Love the Farm, Leave No Trace’ campaign to persuade visitors to take their waste with them), there remains an ever-growing problem of litter across festival sites.


But, during these events there comes salvation in the armies of volunteers who make their way across site, picking litter as they go. In exchange for free entry to the festival, they will give up their time to clean up festival goers waste in the early hours of the morning, leaving the ground clean for the following day’s frivolities.


It’s always something that amazes me when I go to festivals – to see the difference from when you stagger back to your tent at three in the morning to when you rise just a few hours later, so I set out to speak to a couple of these noble volunteers to find out more about the magical work that they do.


During my quest to find these brave souls, I managed to track down two from opposite ends of the spectrum: Kim Searle, 28, from Huddersfield, who is something of a litter-picking veteran, having volunteered at small- scale festivals 2000 Trees, Wilderness and Shambala over the years, while also helping out as a regular punter, and Steph Cole, 22, from London, who made her litter picking debut at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.


So why did they decide to volunteer? Kim said that she signed up to litter pick because of the increasing level of rubbish at festivals she attended: “I


www.tomorrowscleaning.com


mostly wanted to volunteer because I love festivals, but can’t stand the mess that’s left behind.


“I went to Lounge on the Farm Festival for six years in a row, and seeing the scale of litter grow every year as the festival expanded was scary. I was shocked that people would want to leave things that were still useful, so I got chatting to some of the clean-up team and just ended up helping them out.”


From there, she started volunteering at festivals and hasn’t looked back, and said that while it might be challenging work, it is rewarding.


“It’s hard work and can make you feel a bit jaded towards festival goers – seeing tip after tip getting full up is baffling. Sometimes when you’re on a shift and you go past a really messy campsite it can be difficult not to get pretty angry at the campers,” she said.


“It’s a good work out though, there’s lots of walking for days on end! But a lot of the time when you’re litter picking you stay on the festival site a lot longer than other volunteers, so you get a real community spirit.”


While Kim volunteered having seen the state of festival sites over the years, Steph said that she was following in her family’s footsteps, having seen her brothers sign up in the past.


She said: “My two older brothers have been working at Glastonbury for years now, I’ve always wanted to go with them but have just never gotten round to it before. This year when I got the chance to sign up with them I couldn’t say no.”


She agreed with Kim that the task at hand was fairly hard going, but added that it did bring a feeling of achievement by the end of each shift.


“I surprisingly found it enjoyable,” she said. “It was a bit of a challenge every morning to see the field in a total state, but once the job was done and the field was clean I definitely felt a sense of pride.”


With shifts that generally start early in the morning, before the campers rise and the day’s activities truly kick off, as well as some short shifts throughout the day, both Kim and Steph said that there was still plenty of time to enjoy the festival.


Tomorrow’s Cleaning August 2015 | 53


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80