With the festival season at the end of its run, have you given a thought to your tent? In Glastonbury it was great to see some innovation from the design sector in particular graduate design.
Approx 5000 abandoned tents, 6000 sleeping bags, 3000 airbeds and 1000 rolled mats are left behind in the UK festival alone. The Guardian writes: Amanda Campbell, a recent University College London graduate in architectural studies, thought up the compostable tent for her final year design project. During the research stage, she realised that a bio-based material such as corn starch bioplastic could biodegrade within 120 days when composted. On its own the bioplastic material couldn’t endure wear and tear, but by putting natural fibres from bamboo or silk between sheets of the bioplastic the tent could be made durable and waterproof. The problem is that cheap tents made from cheap materials – costing as little as £15 at some supermarkets – are easy to come by, says Amanda Campbell, founder of what she claims is the world’s first compostable tent, Comp-a-Tent.
Full article from the Guardian here.
Another way to consider your tent is to re-use it! Last years Electric Picnic @GlobalGreenatEP mobilised the entire Picnic to donate all their festival shelters to the the refugee crisis using the hashtag #TentsForCalais and ended up with over 400 tents which were driven straight to Calais - an initiative from the very wonderful Co. Clare woman & community activist @RoisinGarvey & this year she is planning on doing the same. Follow the hashtag. And there are drop off points in every campsite.
So if you are tenting this 'summer' at a festival please think of how you will dispose of your tent. It is great if you bring it home and re-use it next year. But if not see if you can donate to a charity while we wait for the Comp-a-tent in 2018!
Check out some of the previous work Danielle Townsend Design created for the Picnic....
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