Thousands of left festival tents head for charity

United Kingdom | | 20 September 2007

More than 3000 tents left by fans at the Reading and Leeds festivals have been donated to good causes around the world.

The tents were either handed in by fans or collected by community groups invited onto the two sites.

More than 100,000 people camped at the Reading and Leeds festivals, which took place over the August bank holiday weekend.

The Give Me Shelter campaign was launched by organisers Festival Republic last year, when just 300 tents were collected compared to ten times that amount this year.

As a result, thousand of tents and other Items have been donated to charities including Crossroads Central Asia, Mission Without Borders UK, Huruma Rehabilitation Programme and Ora International.

Festival Republic’s Melvin Benn said: “The response to this year's Give Me Shelter campaign was phenomenal. I am committed to upping the green credentials of Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds Festivals. And it’s heartened to see such a great response from festival goers to this and our other green initiatives at this year’s festival.”

The campaign was launched in association with the international charity Global Hand, which aims to reduce the number of tents going to landfill and shift attitudes away from viewing festival camping gear as disposable single use items.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of tents are left at festivals across the UK, with 2007 being one of the worst due to the bad weather.

The problem is high on the agenda of the website AGreenerFestival.com, which is working to encourage festivals and festival goers to do more to protect the environment.