Statement: Stream pollution at Glastonbury Festival

14th January 2016

Throughout its long history, Glastonbury Festival has fully and publicly committed to sustaining and improving the environment where the Festival takes place, alongside a policy of reducing the impact of the Festival’s 200,000 attendees on the wider environment, particularly in regard to emissions, discharges, vehicle movements and noise pollution.

The Festival has also worked closely with its major charity partners, Greenpeace, Oxfam and WaterAid, since the 1980s, to raise awareness of global environmental issues and highlight innovative and practical solutions.

Regretfully however, during the last two Festivals (in 2014 and 2015) some pollution has unintentionally made it into the stream running through the site, due to issues including a faulty tank and through Festival goers urinating on the land.

With the causes already identified and analysed, Glastonbury Festival continues to work with all stakeholders, including the Environment Agency, on ways to prevent and safeguard against any problems in the future.

Substantial improvement work on the site’s infrastructure has already begun and will continue over the coming months. At the same time, the Festival will again work rigorously with all of its contractors and staff to raise awareness of the environmental issues involved and the importance of preventing further incidents.

Working alongside our charitable partners, these important messages about protecting the land will also be shared with the Festival’s ticket holders as we continue our work to reduce the Festival’s impact on the environment.