Bulldozers were used to clear up thousands of leftover tents and waste left at the Electric Picnic location in Stradbally yesterday.
One shocking video, shot by Ed Rice, shows two bulldozers trudging through the Oscar Wilde campsite gathering the waste, which was then transferred straight to a landfill site.
Rice then moves on to the Jimi Hendrix campsite where he predicts that 30,000 tents were abandoned.
This doesn’t include the Janis Joplin and Andy Warhol sites, which he also filmed.
It is estimated that over 588 tonnes of waste, which includes beer cans, food wrappers, chairs, inflatable mattresses, clothing – including shoes and coats - goes into a landfill/incinerator after the Picnic.
Although there were charity groups and volunteers at Electric Picnic, who aim to salvage materials left behind after the festival, the volume of items was too much for volunteers to cope with.
“You’d need about 2,000 volunteers to even begin to pick up all the stuff,” Rice says in the footage.
Friends of the Earth had a strong presence at Electric Picnic this weekend for the fourth year in a row with 160 Green Messengers on hand to divert as much waste as possible from landfills and incinerators into recycling and composting facilities.
It's the last day of #ElectricPicnic2018. But check out how our plastic deposit & return system worked at @EPfestival & sign our petition if you're #SickOfPlastic too https://t.co/LGtMoH1QWs @DenisNaughten #ReturnNotBurn #PlasticFree #ElectricPicnic #WasteReductionBill pic.twitter.com/yCYNwGMRn5
— Friends of the Earth (@foeireland) September 2, 2018
Despite their efforts, which included running a popular plastic cup deposit and return scheme, Cara Augustenborg of Friends of the Earth said that only 1% of the waste in the campsites is recycled.
Ms Augustenborg added: “Waste is a huge problem at music festivals because people bring inexpensive camping gear and leave it behind, often mistakenly believing it will go to charity.”
Maura Lyons, Manager of Leave No Trace Ireland has called on festival owners to take urgent measures to avoid the huge waste of recyclable resources.
“These photos and videos from the Electric Picnic festival site in Stradbally, Co. Laois are hugely disturbing and showcase the unnecessary waste that too often occurs after festivals in Ireland. It’s time for festivals to stop using words like ’environment’, ‘green’ and ‘sustainability’ as marketing catchphrases, and actually invest in tackling these issues head-on," she said.
"We are drowning in our own waste. Many of these materials are reusable and recyclable. Seeing bulldozers scorch the site is sickening in a time when these materials could be used for many purposes."
