My next door neighbours daughter who is in her early 20s has just come back from a music festival with her boyfriend. When they were taking their rubbish to the rubbish area at the end of the festival, they noticed a rather large tent bag dumped on top of the pile of rubbish so they decided to bring it home and investigate. They weren’t too optimistic that it would all be there, but they put it up in their garden and although I haven’t seen it close-up, it looks to be a hi-gear Zenobia and is completely intact with all poles and parts!
The daughter and her boyfriend are absolutely delighted because they’re going to Glastonbury next weekend and now have a much more spacious tent than the tiny little pop-up they have been using for festivals this year!
I’ve been googling to try to find the tent online, it is definitely a hi-gear, and looks very much like the Zenobia, therefore that’s about £250 worth of tent dumped in the rubbish at the end of the festival! I really don’t understand how people would do such a thing.
Some charities & festival organisers collect the discarded tents for homeless people to use.
Your neighbours certainly got a bargain & stopped something going off to landfill too. Good for therm!
Every year that we go to Le Mans 24 Hr motor race in France, we find the same thing. A fair number of people turn up in something like a sports car with no luggage space but a passenger or two, they dump the passenger(s) on site to mind the pitch, go off to the local hypermarket, buy all their camping gear, come back and set up, then at the end of the event, just load the passengers in the car and go home, leaving all the camping gear behind! I guess if you can own and run £100k plus car, a few hundred quid on camping gear is insignificant! ..... it doesn't exactly go straight to landfill, the local Pykies come and scour the camp for anything of worth after the event. Sadly there is an element who wantonly damage/destroy the gear before departing so that even though they don't want it, no one else can benefit from it, now that is just moronic IMHO!
Seen a few fold up chairs and tables dumped at caravan sites in UK where people have upgraded during their stay and left the old stuff behind, appears to be in usable order.
I find it sad that so many people view almost anything as 'disposable' these days, and it does seem to be the youngsters that are the worst offenders, maybe the oldies have retained the sense of stuff being hard won with hard graft to pay for it, and has sufficient value to them to retain and see future use in it.
I believe at one of the big music festivals, may have been Glastonbury, that a team went around and salvaged abandoned camping gear and donated it to something like the homeless.
It is only disposable if is disposed of & destroyed. If it is disposed of by it’s owners & used by others then the item continues to be used. I am often disposing of perfectly good stuff I don’t need so I put it in front of my house. Most of it is taken & presumably reused.
I hate waste. I would much rather see stuff I don’t need continue to be used rather than take it down the tip. Of course I could eBay or carboot this stuff but I don’t because I can’t be bothered. More money than sense I suppose ?
My grand daughter and husband are avid festival goers and justify the actions of those that dump equipment,by saying they live in cities or small flats and have no where to store stuff.
You might think there was some kind of 'left luggage' (permanent) at these festival sites nowadays. Leaving - often expensive, gear, is nothing new. Instead of folk just upping and leaving stuff where it sits, or even worse, throwing it in skips on the way out; if they could literally officially 'dump' it at a station of sorts, so it could be checked and repurposed, it would save a lot of clearing up at the end.
There are always organisations like "Freegle" or "Freecycle" where you can give away unwanted but usable items to save them going into landfill. Even some items that no longer work may be snapped up by someone and re-purposed.
Quote: Originally posted by Suzie2poos on 19/6/2022
Festivals could even hire things out for a deposit. Surely there must be a tent manufacturer who could get on board and develop a basic festival kit.
Quote: Originally posted by Wendyhouse on 19/6/2022
Quote: Originally posted by Suzie2poos on 19/6/2022
Festivals could even hire things out for a deposit. Surely there must be a tent manufacturer who could get on board and develop a basic festival kit.
There are a number that do exactly that.
Hiring sounds like a good idea to me, as I detest today's throw-away society. Nothing gets thrown away in my house unless it has been used a great many times and is completely beyond repair. Even then I will try and re-purpose it if I can.
Quote: Originally posted by Wendyhouse on 19/6/2022
Quote: Originally posted by Suzie2poos on 19/6/2022
Festivals could even hire things out for a deposit. Surely there must be a tent manufacturer who could get on board and develop a basic festival kit.
There are a number that do exactly that.
Hiring sounds like a good idea to me, as I detest today's throw-away society. Nothing gets thrown away in my house unless it has been used a great many times and is completely beyond repair. Even then I will try and re-purpose it if I can.
I am the same, even down to keeping the same wife for over 60 years.
There is no need to just 'dump' stuff, Freecycle/Freegle users exchange the most astounding broken tat, because it often has scope for repair or re-purposing by the suitably skilled, but good functional stuff goes in a flash, often in only minutes of being posted up, even someone in the tiniest flat could surely find space for a festival tent for a day or two until taken. It's a mentality thing, not a practical problem that causes this appalling attitude of just throw it away.
I've picked up all sorts of things off Freegle, like a brand new document laminator still sealed in it's packaging, a colour laser printer/scanner that had the simplest of problems, and a host of other things both perfectly functional and easily fixed. These people have a sense of protecting the planet and not wanting their discarded items becoming polluting waste. I've moved on redundant old CRT TVs that became photo studio props, old printers that were wanted for spare parts, virtually nothing needs to go to waste at it's first disposal!
As to keeping a wife for 60 years, that's just plain greedy, spread the 'joy' (Ha Ha ) around!
I think some are missing the point of stuff being dumped instead of it going on, eg freecycle. The festival goers are dumping it because they either cant, or dont want to cart it home. If they could be bothered to do this, im pretty sure they could flog it as give it away free. But they dont want to invest any time/effort once the gear has done its intended job.
Quote: Originally posted by Mick S. on 19/6/2022
I think some are missing the point of stuff being dumped instead of it going on, eg freecycle. The festival goers are dumping it because they either cant, or dont want to cart it home. If they could be bothered to do this, im pretty sure they could flog it as give it away free. But they dont want to invest any time/effort once the gear has done its intended job.
That is just it Mick, most of them simply can't be bothered with carting it home and freecycling it. That is typical of today's throw-away society. All I can say is that they are lucky to have money just to throw away. I never have had, and certainly don't now I'm retired. My parents brought me up to make-do-and-mend anyway, and I always have.
Quote: Originally posted by Monty15 on 19/6/2022
There is no need to just 'dump' stuff, Freecycle/Freegle users exchange the most astounding broken tat, because it often has scope for repair or re-purposing by the suitably skilled, but good functional stuff goes in a flash, often in only minutes of being posted up, even someone in the tiniest flat could surely find space for a festival tent for a day or two until taken. It's a mentality thing, not a practical problem that causes this appalling attitude of just throw it away.
I've picked up all sorts of things off Freegle, like a brand new document laminator still sealed in it's packaging, a colour laser printer/scanner that had the simplest of problems, and a host of other things both perfectly functional and easily fixed. These people have a sense of protecting the planet and not wanting their discarded items becoming polluting waste. I've moved on redundant old CRT TVs that became photo studio props, old printers that were wanted for spare parts, virtually nothing needs to go to waste at it's first disposal!
As to keeping a wife for 60 years, that's just plain greedy, spread the 'joy' (Ha Ha ) around!
I've picked up a few things off Freegle too, and given a few things away. I'll always try and fix stuff if I can. I've also used the wood from old broken furniture that was of little or no value.
Not quite made 60 years with one wife. Not doing bad though, 54 years in September.
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.