Hundreds of volunteers rescue Leeds Festival rubbish - with finds including tents, food, and cowboy boots
“We’re getting more use out of things that were never designed to be single-use items”
Camping gear, toiletries, and plenty of snacks, are essentials for many festival goers.
But when the music stops and the crowds disperse, how many decide to bring these items home?
Every August bank holiday weekend, tens of thousands of people descend upon Bramham Park for Leeds Festival, leaving tons upon tons of waste behind.
That’s why volunteers organise a salvage operation every year to rescue the rubbish that can be reused.
Festival Republic, the organisers of Leeds Festival, allow these salvagers to access select parts of the site after the festival to collect items.
Hannah Ward has been salvaging at Leeds Festival for the past three years and she highlighted that salvaging saves waste that can be used by local charities and not-for-profit initiatives.
“Most of the stuff is brand new, you could tell it was the first time it had been used,” Hannah told the Yorkshire Evening Post.
“By packing it away and salvaging it, we’re getting more use out of things that were never designed to be single-use items.”
Over 300 people participated in this year’s salvage operation, including volunteers from Yum Community Fridge and Pantry, Rainbow Junction, and Huddersfield to Ukraine Humanitarian Aid.
However, despite the large volunteer effort, Hannah said the amount of waste left behind makes it “impossible” to rescue everything.
“There’s a misconception that everything is going to get saved and go to charity and that is wrong, even with 300 volunteers that spent four hours on the site.
“We could’ve spent four days there, and we’d still be getting good stuff on day four. It's impossible to take all of it.”
Hannah said that a particular challenge salvagers face is navigating past “sticky, damaged, and dirty” items to find what is actually salvageable.
That’s why she advised festivalgoers who have decided to leave their items behind, to tidy them up and place them near an info point so they are easily collectable by volunteers.
She also said that by investing in good quality equipment, campers reduce the temptation to leave their stuff behind and save money in the long-term.
Tents and camping chairs are regularly rescued by volunteer groups for reuse, while unopened food and toiletries are often donated to community pantry projects.
Clothes can also often be washed and resold at charity shops.
Bramham Park is also filled with more unexpected finds that can be repurposed, with this year’s offering including several pairs of cowboy boots and trendy water bottles.
Jed Aitchison has been salvaging at Leeds Festival for the past six years, and he believes festival goers leave premium items out of tiredness after the festival fun.
Jed said: “A festival customer on the Monday is at their lowest ebb of humanity. They’re exhausted, they’re probably hungover and very hungry, and all they want to do is go home and go to bed.
“The last thing anyone wants to do is origami and a hike to put their tent away.”
Jed also spotlighted that because Leeds Festival is many young people’s first experience camping, this impacts the amount of waste left behind.
Leeds Festival had a range of sustainability initiatives throughout the weekend, including a ‘repair café’ which fixed broken goods for free, and volunteer litter-pickers to limit the amount of rubbish on site.
Jed praised these initiatives and highlighted that salvaging is just “one part of an overall strategy” to keep waste to a minimum.
Both Jed and Hannah keep returning to salvage because they want to prevent usable items from going to waste.
However, they said public co-operation is vital for this mission to succeed.
Jed said “What we do is put a band-aid on a gaping chest wound.
“I’ll never be able to get every single customer of Leeds Festival to be super responsible, but all I can do is try and shift behaviour.”