Glastonbury Festival unveils stainless steel pinters

Glastonbury Festival Green Initiatives Co-ordinator Lucy Smith told eFestivals last year that the Festival was looking at ways to create less mess, and get Festival goers away from single use items, and that included introducing a reusable stainless steel pint pot, which will be made of 80 per cent recycled British stainless steel.

Glastonbury Festival strives to develop their environmental policies and practices each year in terms of traffic and transport, greenhouse gas emissions, waste and recycling, water conservation, noise pollution, ethical policies and environmental protection.

The steel cups continue Glastonbury Festival's practice of making use of British products. The tents at Worthy View and the solar panels used at Worthy Farm are all British made.

The new steel cup initiative will see 250,000 of the stainless pint pots distributed at Glastonbury Festival, it's something that Lucy has been working on for a couple of years now, she was hoping to introduce them last year but her team were held up finding a solution to washing the cups so they can re-used. That problem has now been solved.

Festival goers will be able to pay a £5 deposit at bars in The Park, or at some other bars elsewhere on the site. When they need a refill, they will be able to swap their cup for a fresh one, and dirty pint mugs will be taken off site to a cleaning depot near Wells and then returned to the site, for reuse.

The mugs were trialled at Pilton Party last year where they resulted in a dramatic reduction in paper waste.

Lucy told The Wells Journal (here), "We've kept them polished and simple with no logo. Everybody said we couldn't do it with something on the scale of Glastonbury and it has been a three year fight to get it off the ground, dealing with everything from weights and measures to crushability tests.

"It's part of the reusable revolution. It's very similar to paying 5p for a carrier bag. We think people will just take to it. The pints are made by APS in Birmingham, and it was a significant part of the project to have them made with British stainless steel.

"It would have been a lot cheaper to have them made in China, but Michael Eavis wanted to support the British steel industry, and what we got was much higher, more consistent quality. The difference is clear in the quality of the steel."

The Festival's recycling centre is has been working at maximum capacity with the volumes of waste that are coming through. Whilst recycling is important it's not the first link in the chain - that's reducing, and re-using, then it's recycling.

The Festival already controls what comes on site for food traders and markets, and they would like Festival goers to think more about what they bring and what they leave behind. They want Festival goers to travel lighter. The overall plan is to put Glastonbury Festival at the forefront of green initiatives for more sustainable events.

The Festival are also looking at trying to improve the level of recycling that happens in the camping fields, and improve the waste disposal in campsite. Last year they worked with FairShare to collect the dry food waste that's not been used over the course of the Festival, increase the amount of waste collection in campsites, and provide more of a presence in the camping areas and provide people, 'Waste Warriors' who engage with Festival goers more in a positive way. The pilot scheme was to encourage people to keep their campsites clean over course of the weekend and "love the farm and leave no trace" when they go home.

Emily Eavis spoke to eFestivals last year and said, "This is a bit more long term, but we're trying to get people to look after their campsites more. To be responsible for the space, to not trash things, and take care of it. Obviously we've had the ‘Love The Farm Leave No Trace' thing, and it is getting better but we want to do more. We want people to look after their campsites more. We want people to take more pride in their camping areas, and look after their space, to collect rubbish, and not leave things in a mess, and try and encourage that somehow, we're looking at ideas in how to do that at the moment, and are keen for any ideas on how to accomplish that.

"I think the Festival brings out the best in people, and I think people really look after each other here. Crime is so low, last year was a record low, and I think that's because people look out for each other, and people self police without needing policemen. They tell people that they can't do that because they'll pollute the rivers, they can't set off that lantern because it will damage the cows, people do tend pass the message around, and look after it as a space. It's so big, the scale of it, that we're not going to have the ideal level of cleanliness when everyone has left."

The resale of returned coach packages will take place at 6pm tonight, Thursday 14th April, for Glastonbury Festival ahead of a limited number of cancelled/refunded general admission tickets going on sale on Sunday.

In order to purchase these cancelled/refunded tickets in the resale ticket buyers,  aged 13 or over (when the Festival starts), must have been registered beforehand to be eligible to buy a ticket. Registration is now closed.

The coach package sale is limited to 2 tickets per transaction, to reflect the limited number of seats available per coach. Ticket purchasers will need their unique registration number for each ticket being booked.

Tickets are priced at £228 plus e-Ticket delivery is £1.50 per order. A list of coach prices can be found here (the price of the Festival ticket is not included).

buy tickets from 6pm here >

Tickets bought in the resale must be paid for in full by debit card. Coach package purchasers will only be sent their coach tickets in advance – the Festival entry tickets will be handed out on the coach. Travel on your chosen coach is mandatory. Please do not book a coach package unless you are certain you will be able to travel on the coach you have selected.

A resale of General Admission Tickets, will take place from 9am on Sunday, 19th April. For general admission it will be a maximum of 4 tickets per transaction.

These tickets can be refunded up until 8th May, and cancellation protection is available at the point of purchase.

The Friday headliners are Muse, Adele tops the bill on Saturday and Coldplay on Sunday, plus PJ Harvey, Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra, Art Garfunkel, Cyndi Lauper, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Last Shadow Puppets, Sigur Ros, Ronnie Spector, Ellie Goulding, Explosions In The Sky, Foals, Beck, LCD Soundsystem, ZZ Top, Disclosure, New Order, Skepta, The 1975, Grimes, Annie Mac, Syrian National Orchestra for Arabic Music, Underworld, James Blake, Chvrches, Savages, Floating Points, Laura Mvula, Stormzy, Daughter, Little Simz, Vince Staples, John Grant, Band of Horses, Jess Glynne, Carl Cox, Nao, Fatboy Slim, Bring Me The Horizon, Richard Hawley, The Lumineers, Lady Leshurr, Rokia Traore, Guy Garvey, Kamasi Washington, Jack Garratt, AlunaGeorge, Hinds, Ezra Furman, M83, Kurt Vile (solo), Mercury Rev, Gregory Porter, Madness, Wolf Alice, Baaba Maal, Ernest Ranglin, Bastille, Roisin Murphy, Santigold, Years And Years, Dua Lipa, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Bat For Lashes, Protoje, Two Door Cinema Club, Jake Bugg, Mac DeMarco, St Etienne, Blossoms, Of Monsters and Men, Lapsley, Bossy Love, Early Ghost, Gillbanks, Hattie Whitehead, Henry Green, Lady Sanity, Marcus McCoan, and She Drew The Gun.

The full complete line-up will not be announced until later this month. Expect something like 2,000 performances at over 100 venues including music, cabaret, theatre, circus, a fantastic Kidz area, poetry, green crafts and information, site art, decor, and loads, loads more ... much more than just the music, so make sure you check it all out!

This year organisers particularly want to highlight the Festival's environmental policies which all ticket purchasers are required to subscribe to. The pledge must be agreed to buy those paying off their balances. It is not possible to attend the Festival without agreeing to Love the Farm, Leave no Trace.

Ticket holders for this summer's Glastonbury Festival are reminded to take part in their future by making sure they apply for an EU Referendum postal or proxy vote. You will find links to the form to postal vote here and proxy voting here. For more information (see the news page here).

As usual eFestivals will bring you the very best-sourced rumours, allowing festival-goers to see who is playing long before the bands are formally announced - keep your eyes on the Glastonbury 2016 line-up & rumours, updated as we receive information.

Help us to help you - if you hear of a band that's playing, please let us know.

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