For the past eight years, 18-year-old Miranda McLean and her family have been making the four-hour drive from Melbourne to Port Fairy for the town’s annual folk festival.
This year, Ms McLean volunteered to be a “bin fairy”.
She helped to separate rubbish and chatted to punters about why that was important.
“[It] doesn’t seem like a big thing,” she said.
“But when you have hundreds and hundreds of people coming through a festival, bins getting contaminated, plastic being thrown in the compost — as soon as you have that contamination, it all goes to waste.”
Waste at Victoria’s Pitch festival in 2019.(Supplied: Rachel Kelly)
More than 500 music festivals are held in Australia each year and, according to Green Music Australia, about two kilograms of waste per person is created per day at the events.
For that reason volunteers are essential to help manage waste and keep festival spaces clean and usable.
But estimates show up to eighty per cent of festival waste comes from campsites and can include abandoned tents, marquees and couches.
This has led to some festival-goers tackling the problem of campsite waste in creative ways.
‘About a culture’
Self-described “doof lover” Lily Walker said she “hated the feeling of helplessness” she felt driving past trashed campsites at the end of a festival.
Business partners Lily Walker (left) and Alex Ellem made it their mission to help people party in an environmentally responsible way.(Supplied: Good Intentions Camping)
“Even if you did pack up all your gear and kept your trash really minimal, it’s about a culture and there are larger systemic issues at play that I found really frustrating,” she said.
In 2020 Ms Walker co-founded Good Intentions Camping as part of a university project.
The initiative sees abandoned gear collected at festival grounds.
It is then refurbished and rented out at future festivals.
Ms Walker said most of the festival waste she saw come from big companies that produced poorly made camping equipment that could be sold for extremely low prices.
“It’s often the only kind of thing that festival-goers who are 18 years old can afford,” she said.
“Festivals will sell those onsite at the general store, and that’s another foundational structural issue that’s the reason why you just see those things over and over again.”
Ms Walker said such equipment was not built to last in harsh Australian conditions and was often abandoned.
“It’s really hard to find any kind of recyclable use for that kind of constructed material,” she said.
“So the reality is the majority of broken things goes to the landfill.”
Rachel Kelly says people should choose to buy quality gear.(Supplied: Rachel Kelly)
‘Sick in the head’
After a decade working in the fast fashion industry, Melbourne based designer Rachel Kelly started to notice the same mindset of disposability she saw in the fashion industry creeping into the festival space.
“I think a lot of Australians, when they think someone’s abandoned a tent, think ‘They must be sick in the head’ — because why would you do that?” Ms Kelly said.
“But it’s the same behaviour as buying a nice dress for the weekend that you know you’re never going to wear again … you’re just not wearing a tent on your body.”
Ms Kelly launched E tū E tū, which gives abandoned camping gear collected from Aussie music festivals a new life as fashionable bags.
The project also runs sustainability workshops for students.
Ms Kelly is calling on the Australian government to follow the example set by France, where regulations targeting fast fashion have been passed in the lower house.
The legislation includes tariffs on low-quality textiles and a ban on marketing textiles that are detrimental to the environment.
Ms Kelly said that kind of legislation could also help to reduce the amount of poorly designed camping gear made from low-quality materials.
‘Sense of purpose’
Ms Kelly said consumers could make a difference by investing in good quality camping equipment.
“Do you need a $14 tent … made out of polyester?” she said.
Ms Walker, who has recently sold Good Intentions Camping to environmental social enterprise B-Alternative, agrees.
“You’re also more likely to take it home if you have invested some money in it, and it’s also going to improve your festival experience,” she said.
Ms Walker said festival-goers should also consider rental options.
“It’s probably going to be just as cheap or just as expensive buying the single-use stuff and you can leave that festival knowing that you’ve contributed positively,” she said.
Ms McClean said she planned to keep volunteering and encouraged others to do so as well.
“It can help find a sense of purpose, find a sense of community,” she said.
“Feeling like you’ve helped out at the end of the day is always going to be a nice feeling.”
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