Green Issues

Bestival was a very proud recipient of an 'Outstanding' Greener Festival Award in 2009, one of only 13 festivals worldwide to achieve this top level award. This year we are building on this still further to make Bestival an even greener and more environmentally friendly event.

The Bestival Green Team, our troupe of top hat sporting eco-minded volunteers, return this year to patrol the site, helping you to keep it green and tidy. They will be handing out recycling bags for you to use in the campsites and free cigarette butt bins. Plus they'll be helping 10:10 at their tent and across the site signing you up to their brilliant carbon reduction campaign and they will be conducting a travel survey as part of the measures we have put in place to analyse, report and act on our greenhouse gas emissions.

We do need your help though … please do your bit to Keep Bestival Tidy by following these simple rules...

1. Use Public Transport or Car Share
 The greatest negative environmental impact of any festival is caused by transport, mostly by cars. In fact approximately 90% of a festival's carbon footprint is caused by vehicle travel to and from the festival. It's really very easy to get to Bestival by public transport (check the rest of this 'Practical Info' section of our website for more info) and it will also be much cheaper for you!

 If you must come by car though, please fill it up with people! Even if you only have one space free in your car, please head over to the Bestival car sharing page at www.liftshare.com/event/20 and get yourselves signed up. In 2008 the people who used our Liftshare service saved 368,778 miles of car travel, 113 tonnes of CO2, 37,588 trees and £36,878 of their own money. That sounds pretty good but we want to do much much better than that in 2009! With your help.

2. Minimise Packaging
Please unpack all unnecessary cardboard and plastic around crates of beer / airbeds / tents before you leave home and avoid bringing plastic carrier bags with you.

3. No Glass
Absolutely NO GLASS is allowed on site. Please decant wine / vodka etc into plastic bottles or it will be confiscated at the gate. No exceptions.

4. Pick up your own litter
Sounds simple, and it really is. When you and your mates move on from wherever you’ve been on site please pick up all your beer cups, water bottles, food containers, fag butts etc and drop them in one of the many recycling points nearby.

In the campsites, please keep the area around your tent tidy and use the recycling bags provided.

5. Recycle
Virtually all waste at Bestival will be recycled. There will be 3 different bin types on site for public use - Cans, Plastic Bottles and All Other Waste. The first two are self-explanatory; the latter is where you should drop all other waste. This will go to an innovative gasification plant on the island which converts 'Waste To Energy' which, in turn, powers many homes on the island. Gasification is a two stage thermal treatment process known as Advanced Conversion Technology (ACT) and represents one of  the most up to date forms of waste treatment available.

There will be a similar bin system in the campsites and you will also be given ‘Mixed Recyclables’ waste sacks for use in and around your tents. Please take these to the Recycling Point pens in each campsite when full.

We will also be recycling glass, gaper, wood, metal and cooking oil used by our production and the traders.

 6. Use the compostable loos
This year we have even more composting loos - these are cleaner, less stinky and much much greener so please use them wherever possible.

And please don’t wee or poo in or near the lakes or woods (or, indeed anywhere other than the loos) as the local wildlife really don‘t like it! And nor do the nice Robin Hill staff who get the really grim job of having to clear it all up once we've left.

7. Use a free Cigarette Butt Bin
Every single fag butt has to be picked up at the end of the weekend. So please grab yourself a free butt bin from The Green Team and use it. These will be small film canisters that you can keep in your pocket and empty at the bins when they are full. Simple.

8. Please don’t waste water
There will be standpipes throughout the site and showers in the campsites. Please use the water to drink/wash but please don’t waste it by leaving taps/showers running.

9. Take your tent home with you
Please don't leave your tents (or gazebos, air matresses, sleeping bags etc) behind at the end of the weekend. They will simply become large pieces of litter that cannot be recycled.

A local scout group will be onsite to salvage some of the abandoned tents but we would much prefer it if you just took yours home with you and re-used it next year.