Green Guide to UK Festivals

Here is our guide to the most popular festivals in the UK, what they're doing to green things up and details on how to get there by public transport. Click on the links below for all the useful info you need for each festival:

The crowd at Rock Ness

Rock Ness One of the season's earliest festivals is also one of its most spectacular: on the shores of Loch Ness under the long Northern sunlight of June (11 - 13), this youthful festival is expanding dramatically year on year. 
See our guide to Rock Ness

Glastonbury The mammoth of the summer Festival season is still going from strength to strength with city-sized crowds flocking to see the likes of Stevie Wonder this June 23 - 27.
See our guide to Glastonbury

Latitude The famously diverse arts festival will pull in another diverse crowd of all ages this July (15 - 18) to see world greats of music, art, theatre, literature, film and much more. 
See our guide to Latitude

Secret Garden Party The Secret might now be out, but Secret Garden Party remains one of the country’s most intimate, quirky and friendly festivals, taking place in a hidden lakeside corner of Cambridgeshire from July 22 - 25. 
See our guide to Secret Garden Party

The Big Chill Festival The bucolic surroundings of Herefordshire's Eastnor Castle are the setting for this relaxed festival with its mix of electronic and world music alongside art, film, dance and comedy, from August 5 - 8. 
See our guide to the Big Chill Festival

Reading and Leeds August Bank Holiday (27 - 29) weekend sees some of the biggest names in music split their time between Yorkshire and Berkshire.
See our guide to Reading and Leeds Festivals

Bestival Child of Rob da Bank and his creative wife, Josie, the leftfield boutique extravaganza that is Bestival has become the much-loved finale (September 9 - 12) of the festival season.
See our guide to Bestival

Ten tips for a greener festival experience:

1. Don't bring things you don't need: it's easy to panic and throw everything you own into your bag, but over-packing can lead to more waste - as well as achey shoulders.
    
2. Use reusable packaging whenever possible: if you're bringing your own food and drink, try to use tupperware and other things you can easily take home and reuse, and reuse drinking bottles. However, this isn't always possible, so...
    
3. ...Use recyclable and biodegradable packaging. Disposing of it has now been made easy, as most festivals these days have clearly marked recycling and compost bins.
    
4. Clean up after yourself: when you're exhausted after a long weekend partying, it's easy to be tempted to just leave your waste for the festival organisers to deal with. Sadly, at many festivals, this may mean it just ends up in landfill.
    
5. Take part in reuse, recycling and waste collection schemes: many festivals now have incentives encouraging you to reuse glasses and mugs (such as a small cash deposit reimbursed on return of the glass at places like Reading, Leeds and Latitude), or offer financial rewards for taking part in litter collection and recycling schemes - cutting the cost of your festival experience.
    
6. Use the toilet: queues for festival toilets can, at times, be agonising, but having a pee behind a strategically placed tree isn't without consequences for the environment. Run-off can seriously damage the environment, even killing wildlife in local rivers and lakes - in 2003 Glastonbury was fined for allowing this to happen. What's more, many festivals have compost toilets that avoid the use of potentially harmful chemicals.
    
7. Turn off: you may be diligent about turning off the lights and switching off your TV at the wall when you're at home, so don't make it any different at a festival! (And don't forget to turn off taps, showers and stand-pipes when you've finished with them).
    
8. If you don't want to take your tent home with you at the end of the festival, you can donate it to a tent-recycling charity who can reuse it helping people in need of shelter - so there's no need to let it become more landfill.
    
9. Come by public transport: almost all major festivals have dedicated coach services, and run shuttles from nearby train stations - making the journey often easier than if you have to work it out and organise it yourself. For more information on specific festivals, see the individual pages above.
    
10. Car-sharing: if there's only two of you in a car, consider taking another couple of passengers heading to the same festival. Not only does this cut down on carbon emissions, it's also a great way to make new friends! Liftshare runs a dedicated festival car-share scheme to help facilitate this.