Older lovers of music festivals will remember a classic public information film from the ‘60s, featuring a young Roy Hudd as a mischievous litter bug. This was recently voted the nation’s favourite public information film, and it has just been re-made.  Keep Britain Tidy wants to change people’s behaviour and get them to clean up their act.

Visitors to music festivals are generally a fairly environmentally friendly lot, but it pays to bear some details in mind.

Some music festivals like Lodestar don’t allow campfires due to both health and safety and for environmental reasons. But music festivals will still attract smokers, and it’s important that cigarette stubs aren’t discarded irresponsibly. Bring a portable ashtray with you and use it!

There are some simple ways that you can avoid littering music festivals with food wrappers:

• avoid buying over-packaged goods and individual portion packs to take with you to the music festivals
• buy durable products, returnable bottles and containers that can be re-filled
• look out for recycled goods and those packaged in recycled materials
• When buying your fruit to take to music festivals, choose loose over pre-packed
• Use re-sealable containers to keep your food fresh

Many music festivals ask festival go-ers not to bring glass items on-site because broken glass is dangerous.  If you are a responsible music festivals go-er and use plastic instead, is it worth putting it into the recycling afterwards?  The answer is yes! Recycling plastic reduces the amount of waste going into landfill, and reduces emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide.

Over 69,000 animals were treated for injuries caused by rubbish last year.  Music festivals don’t encourage you to take your pets along (and in some cases animals are banned. Sorry but no animals are allowed at LodeStar) but there are still animals in the surrounding countryside.  One discarded plastic bag left after music festivals can represent death by suffocation to a hedgehog, mole or other small animal, so recycle it on site or take it home.

The fastest growing energy-consumption sector is transport. Nearly all cars burn petrol or diesel and account for about 20% of worldwide man-made carbon dioxide emissions. The average car user is responsible each year for a weight of carbon dioxide roughly equivalent to the weight of the car. In addition, cars and other forms of motorised road transport release other air pollutants which contribute to poor air quality and acid rain. Individual car use can be reduced by choosing alternative modes of travel, but if you need to use your car to get to music festivals, try a car-share.

Enjoy your musical festivals, and leave a clean countryside behind when you leave.

The LodeStar Festival looks forward to welcoming you in 2007.  For more information contact info@lodestarfestival.com