Efforts to make the world’s greatest music competition sustainable have an effect on all the pieces from trash pickup to wheelchair entry to little one security. Is it doable for 200,000+ campers to “depart no hint?”
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, HOST: A yr after Woodstock was held within the U.S., a British farmer determined to do one thing related and invited rock stars to his household farm. That was southwest England in 1970. And now 54 years later, Glastonbury is without doubt one of the world’s greatest music festivals. This weekend’s lineup contains Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Shania Twain. Even now, the five-day competition someway manages to stay to its founder’s motto of depart no hint on the land. NPR’s Lauren Frayer takes a take a look at how.LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: It seems like each inch of grass is taken by a sea of multiclored tents. There are lots of of 1000’s of individuals tenting out right here. The world is dotted with these huge phases, a number of tales excessive. There’s even a pop-up resort with a swimming pool put in in it.UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)FRAYER: No plastic or glass is allowed right here. The whole lot is biodegradable and compostable. However there’s nonetheless quite a bit left behind by lots of of 1000’s of campers. And that falls to Atholl Lawson and his group.ATHOLL LAWSON: They’re all volunteers. They arrive by way of like a herd of locusts.FRAYER: He instructions a military of trash collectors, deployed day and evening, to empty 15,000 trash bins.LAWSON: Paper cups, white baggage, cans go. We choose up the baggage.FRAYER: Oh, it is colour coded.LAWSON: Yeah, so…FRAYER: They usually’ve acquired little grabber instruments and…LAWSON: Yeah, little grabber instruments, a great deal of baggage. We have it right down to a high-quality artwork now, so…UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Copy that.FRAYER: About 100 dump-truck-loads of trash arrive per day at a recycling facility that will get rebuilt on web site every summer season, the place folks in hazmat fits hunch over conveyor belts.LUKE HOWELL: The entire waste that’s collected is being hand-sorted over at a conveyor belt selecting line.FRAYER: Luke Howell is Glastonbury’s sustainability and inexperienced initiatives supervisor. His job is to arrange the location for the return of its full-time residents, a flock of dairy cows, inside every week.HOWELL: Yeah, typically sooner. The competition will end, clearly, on Sunday evening, and as folks depart the campsites all through Monday. And I will be selecting up any random little damaged items of plastic, you realize, or wrapper or, like, a cigarette butt. After which now we have an enormous magnet on the again of a tractor, and that can undergo, and it’ll acquire any metals.FRAYER: To tug up any stray tent pegs which may get left behind. Now, most people doing this work are literally volunteers…SCARLETT LAKE: I am 27. I am a scientist in actual life, however right here I clear bathrooms.FRAYER: …Individuals like Scarlett Lake, a geneticist by day, who’s doing among the dirtiest work right here in alternate for a free competition ticket. She’s joined by Rachel Smith from the charity WaterAid.RACHEL SMITH: We’ll see a couple of scenes, you realize?FRAYER: I am not going to ask.SMITH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. However yeah, we have robust stomachs, have not we?FRAYER: These are Glastonbury’s signature long-drop bathrooms, which get suctioned out by tanker vehicles a number of instances a day. Along with billing itself as sustainable, the competition additionally ensures entry for all, together with kids and folks with particular wants. There are calm zones for neurodivergent of us and wheelchair ramps for folks like Karen Lamb.KAREN LAMB: Nicely, I’ve acquired a number of sclerosis, so I can not stroll far in any respect.FRAYER: She navigates the greater than 1,100-acre competition on a mobility scooter.LAMB: These are the large off-roader ones.FRAYER: The tires are like…LAMB: Sure.FRAYER: …Kind of mud, all-terrain…LAMB: And it is actually good as a result of it will get me about. I could not do that with out it, so…FRAYER: She’s additionally acquired battery-powered flashing lights braided by way of her hair.LAMB: Is useful later when it is darkish and also you’re attempting to get by way of the crowds to have one thing in your head that lights up so folks see you. In any other case, I find yourself working folks over (laughter).(SOUNDBITE OF SCOOTER BEEPING)FRAYER: For now, that is truly one of many greatest cities in southern England, nevertheless it’ll return to being a sleepy farm in only a few days.Lauren Frayer, NPR Information, in Glastonbury, southwest England.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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