Glastonbury's mass clean up begins as festival site trashed by days of partying
It's the morning after the nights before at Glastonbury as the lengthy and costly clean-up operation begins.
Revellers begun leaving the Somerset site in the early hours having enjoyed music from stars including Elton John, the Arctic Monkeys and Lana Del Ray.
More than 210,000 pitched-up over the weekend and the days before - and despite pleas from organisers, they leave behind quite a mess.
The 800-acre Worthy Farm site was left strewn with thousands and thousands of discarded items including paper cups and food containers as volunteers began sifting the clutter as festival-goers made their way home.
The crew also dealt with over-flowing bins and camping chairs, blow-up mattresses and even slippers and unwanted flip-flops.
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After the impressive pick up by the Pyramid stage just after 8am (Tom Wren / SWNS)Avon and Somerset Police recorded 120 incidents, a force spokesman said. This included 27 thefts, 20 drug offences and seven sexual assaults. A total of 35 arrests were made.
The festival has implored music fans to take everything home with them, writing on Twitter : “When you’re packing up your tent, please put your rubbish in the bin bags provided by campsite stewards and take home all of your belongings to use again next time! Thank you. Love the farm, leave no trace!”
Last year, organisers were thrilled as once again more than 99 per cent of tents were taken home leaving under a thousand to be thrown away.
The entire process of cleaning up the whole site can take close to month to complete, but in bad weather it has been known to last six weeks.
Things hadn't been looking so good in the early hours of this morning (ADAM VAUGHAN/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)Despite signing up to the event's green pledge when purchasing a ticket, an estimated 2,000 tonnes of waste – that's almost 10kg per person – are left behind each year.
The litter-picking teams have already got down to work with the Wessex Water crews soon to be on-site removing sewage waste from the site.
Co-organiser Emily Eavis said that it can cost up to £500,000 more to return the site to its original state.
She came up with the idea of a Worthy Pledge, which music loves must agree to when paying the balance of their tickets.
Litter pickers begin the job of clearing the fields at the crack of dawn (ADAM VAUGHAN/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)It reads: I will respect the fields and the people in them and I will only use the toilets provided and not pee on the land.
"I will dispose of rubbish carefully using the correct bins, keep my campsite tidy and I will take all my belongings / camping gear home with me again."
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Drivers were encouraged to leave the site before 7am on Monday morning to avoid queues and were urged to have food, drink and supplies in their car in the event of long waits.
Advice for those with cars said: “From 8am until 5pm on Monday there are likely to be queues as our stewards work hard to help all the cars which arrived over three days to leave in one day.
“None of the staff can go home until you have, so please be calm, respectful and understanding.”
It can take weeks to restore Worthy Farm to its former state (Tom Wren / SWNS)Critical Waste, the firm who manages The Recycling Crew at Glastonbury Festival, has managed the waste at the festival since 2008.
Andy Wilcott, who runs the clean-up operation at the festival, spoke previously about some of the weird, wonderful and quite disgusting things they've found.
He did not hesitate when he asked him what the strangest thing he and his team had ever found during a clean up.
"A poo in a bra, hanging in a tree," he replied.
But there's good news is if you left the event without something important, there's a fair chance you can get it back.
He went on: "We found a cannonball once, and we've found mannequins.
"We find a lot of lost wallets and jewellery and millions of phones.
"The lost property system is incredible. They try for months to return items. Phones can normally be returned."
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