Independent festivals are urging stores to stop selling single-use tents, which contribute to 900 tons of plastic waste each year.

During festival season, thousands of tents are left abandoned in fields.
These tents are not only a nightmare to clean up, but contribute to a
significant amount of plastic waste.

Many of these tents are branded as “festival tents,” which encourages people to buy them for cheap and use them once.

Comp-A-Tent have launched a ‘Take Your Tent Home – Say No To
Single Use’ campaign. The campaign urges festival goers to rethink their
choices and consider reusing their festival tents rather than leaving them abandoned.

“We call upon major retailers to stop marketing and selling
tents and other camping items as essentially single-use, and profiting from disposable
culture,” said CEO Paul Reed. “AIF launches this campaign to raise
awareness and highlight abandoned tents as part of the single-use plastics
problem.

“The message here is not to buy a more expensive tent – with a
single tent carrying the same amount of plastic as more than 8,700 plastic
straws, festival audiences can take positive action and reduce their carbon
footprint simply by taking their tent home and reusing it, ensuring that it
doesn’t become a single-use item this summer.”