Glastonbury 2015: Shocking scenes of rubbish left strewn across campsite as clean-up begins

An army of volunteer recyclers will work all day to pick up the litter

Daisy Wyatt
Monday 29 June 2015 09:39 EDT
Comments
(EPA)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The revellers have left Glastonbury, leaving acres of plastic bottles, beer cans and sheets of unwanted tarpaulin strewn across the festival site in their wake.

A dedicated recycling team of 800 people began picking up waste at 6am as over 150,000 festival-goers made their way home.

A number of abandoned tents have been left in the festival’s campsite, which will prove a challenge for the team to disassemble throughout the day.

Glastonbury offers free tickets to volunteers who pick up litter across the site after festival-goers leave.

Members of the volunteer team will walk on an average 15 to 20 miles a day to collect discarded rubbish and empty overflowing bins across the 900 acre site.

“You generally find fairy wings. All the bags go to the recycling centre, they rip open the sacks and sort them by hand. We don’t get paid! But we get our ticket money back if they work all our shifts. We love it! We’d never come and not work.”

Image: EPA
Image: EPA (EPA)

Glastonbury 2015 saw headline performances from Florence + The Machine, Kanye West and The Who, but it was Sunday afternoon’s Lionel Richie who drew the biggest crowd with an estimated audience of 100,000 people.

Image: EPA
Image: EPA (EPA)

Emily Eavis has confirmed she has already booked the three headliners for next year’s festival.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in