Environmental group calls for festival tent tax
Clean Up Britain wants campers to pay £25 festival tent tax.
British environmental group Clean Up Britain is fed up with the amount of tents and camping gear left behind at festivals and has proposed a “tent tax.”
“Clean Up Britain was started by a small group of professionals who united based on a shared passion for looking after our environment, and a particular concern about the increasing problem of litter,” their website states.
Disposable tents are a major problem in the UK festival circuit and although festivals are making moves to ban the practice, it’s a timely process when we need results now.
Some 250, 000 tents are left at festivals in the UK every year and although the number has decreased this year, aerial shots of the Reading Festival campsite shows there is still a massive amount of camping equipment left behind.
Clean Up Britain
“This is heartbreaking and such a waste of resources – it should not happen,” John Read, founder of Clean Up Britain, told the BBC. “You see a lot of people saying they care about the environment but their words and actions don’t match up.”
The £25 tax will serve as more of a deposit, with festivalgoers able to reclaim the “tax” after proving that they brought their tent our with them.
The leftover/unclaimed funds will go towards the clean up of tents and discarded camping gear left behind at festivals.
It is important to acknowledge the positive. This year, Glastonbury reported that 99.3% of tents were taken home by festivalgoers, an amazing feat for a 200,000-reveler strong festival.
Just heard that 99.3% of all tents were taken home. That is absolutely incredible… HUGE thanks to the record numbers who loved the farm and left no trace! #Glastonbury2019 pic.twitter.com/5wzN9GPX0c
— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) July 2, 2019
At the moment no concrete plan has been drawn up to implement festival tent tax.
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