48. Green fields - can festivals be sustainable?

This transcript is generated automatically and so could be full of errors and spelling mistakes. We apologise for this but it is the best we can offer at this point. Your local podcast provider might also provide a transcript.

James Piper: Hello. Welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one sided stories. In this episode we will discuss how sustainable festivals like Glastonbury are. Is a disposable barbecue, rubbish or not? And I have a question about food grade bottles made of ocean bound plastic. I'm James Piper, author of the Rubbish Book and I'm joined by Robbie Staniforth, my far from rubbish friend. Good morning, Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: Hey, James.

James Piper: We did Earthfest last week.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh yeah, it was so exciting.

James Piper: It was great. I really loved it. So this was Earthfest, which was in like the heart of King's Cross and they had lots and lots of really amazing events and great to be part of. And the founder of Earthfest actually is a fan of our podcast, so. Hello. And that's how they got in contact with me. They said, look, we'd love you to do a live podcast. And the episode we did was actually the episode that went out last week. So we decided rather than trying to get the live audio, we would just rerecord. Yeah.

Robbie Staniforth: And was the chat better the first or second time around? You'll never know.

James Piper: We'll let the people who attended Airfest and who also heard the episode.

Robbie Staniforth: True fans. The true fans.

James Piper: So we had a lovely time, but there were so many funny things, weren't there? Do we want to pick, pick our favourites?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, geez. Yeah. I embarrassed myself with a keep cup moment. I very smugly was getting like a bag search check at the security, wasn't I? And I was like, oh yeah, it's, it's full, the bag. Obviously I've brought my own keep cup. Unbeknownst to me, I thought that was quite a funny joke. Sustainability festival. And unbeknownst to me, there was another eco conscious person right next to me in the queue who had a single use cup and I had basically just outed her. What did she say, James?

James Piper: Well, we just heard. No, we just heard this little noise, this. Oh, so you opened your bag, said, you know, obviously I've got my own keep cup. And she just went. And from beside us we just had. Oh, there was this lady with a single use cup.

Robbie Staniforth: And I was apologising profusely. I was like, I didn't mean to call you out.

James Piper: It was great. That was interesting actually, because I attended the first session that day which was all about climate change and they were talking about like oil and gas and how bad everything is and it was super interesting and everyone's in the Audience nodding along. And I counted that 25 of people had a single use cup first thing in the morning on Saturday. So, you know, I just think, yeah, it shows we're important. It shows we're needed.

Robbie Staniforth: Absolutely.

James Piper: Got to tell people to bring their reusable cups. Anyway, I had a funny situation because we were presenting on the Samsung Kings Cross stage, which was beautiful, a massive screen, really cool. We'll put some pictures up on Social if we've got them. And just as I was going on, I was holding my iPad and the guy went, well, obviously, obviously, you're not gonna be allowed to use that on stage. It's got my notes on it.

Robbie Staniforth: How about a bit of warning, buddy? I'm about to walk on stage.

James Piper: I'll have to give you a Samsung device. It's not gonna work. My one note. Can I just go on? I'll just put it on the table. You know, no one will see the Apple logo. But I'm a very honest person and when someone's told me something like that, I'm like, don't mention it, don't mention it, don't mention it. Of course, first thing I do when I get on stage is say, really sorry, I'm looking at this table. I'm not allowed to lift my iPad up.

Robbie Staniforth: The sound tech guy in the Samsun studio did like it, though, I must say. He was chuckling from the back.

James Piper: Okay, that's a relief because I was then worried about it for the whole. The whole thing. So. Brands are weird, aren't they? It made me think of that villain clause. Have you heard of the no villain clause that Apple have?

Robbie Staniforth: No, what's that?

James Piper: Apple have this thing, apparently. I'm not sure it's true, but Apple have this thing apparently, where in a movie a villain can't have an Apple device. So if you're watching a movie and there's a big twist as to who the villain is, it'll be the person with the Android phone. If everyone el.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Have you just spoiled the plot of, like, every single whodunit?

James Piper: Possibly. Although this story does originate from a director who made a murder mystery who had this happen in his first film, and then in the sequel, the baddie was a character who had an iPad. So I think he did it to deliberately kind of make everyone look the other way, not realise who the person was, and then made it really obvious in the second film that someone was holding Android all the time. And that was just a big red herring.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, okay. Very clever. Very meta.

James Piper: Anyway, that's the end of the film podcast. On with the trash talk. Trash talk. Robbie, it's Glastonbury. We're not there.

Robbie Staniforth: I know. Yeah. Sad. Another year goes by and we're not there.

James Piper: Gutted. It's increasingly harder to get tickets each year.

Robbie Staniforth: Really hard also, like, to be part of a crew or, like, do a bit of work there. It gets harder and harder.

James Piper: I

00:05:00

James Piper: only went once. I've gone in. I went in 2014. What about you?

Robbie Staniforth: 2015. Yeah. It was just before my daughter was born and at the time it didn't feel like a last hurrah. But as time goes by and we're near, well, we are a decade later and I haven't been again. It does feel a bit more like it was my last hurrah or something.

James Piper: Yeah. Although I was very surprised when I went to Glastonbury, how family friendly it was. So, you know, you could definitely take your daughter. I definitely one day take our son. I'm sure. Eventually.

Robbie Staniforth: Don't give her any ideas. I'll have to remortgage my house to a full.

James Piper: This is true. So Glastonbury is literally happening while this goes out.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: So there will, I'm sure, be people listening to it from the festival.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, definitely.

James Piper: They'll have arrived. They'll have brought in all their bottles. All their reusable bottles, I'm sure, in wheelie bins. That's what happens, isn't it? People used to. Because the. The rule with Glassmere, I don't know if people haven't been to Glastonbury or international. It was like, you can bring in whatever you carry.

Robbie Staniforth: Yes.

James Piper: And so when I was there, people were wheeling in wheelie bins full of alcohol.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that's exactly right.

James Piper: It was the most efficient way to bring your alcohol in. I filled those camel bags, you know, the things you have, one with rum, one with whiskey and just, you know, mix it up, pretend I'm running. Anyway, festivals bring a really interesting sustainability challenge. You're bringing together so many people in one place, which inevitably leads to environmental issues, but also some awesome opportunities, because having people in one place. We've sort of talked about it before when we've talked about compostables. What a great place for compostables, because you can make every bin compostable and you can make every piece of packaging compostable, and suddenly you've got a route for that and it's much easier than kind of on the go packaging.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, definitely.

James Piper: And just as I was preparing this, so as I was Writing the script. Yesterday, an email popped into my inbox from Elephant Box and the only reason I'm subscribed to Elephant Box is because of his podcast, because we gave away one of their mugs.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes, Stuart's episode, wasn't it?

James Piper: Exactly. And so I'm on their mailing list and the subject was, are you festival ready? And I thought, this is amazing. So the email said that During a typical UK festival season, attendees throw out 2 million plastic bottles, 1.3 million single use food contain containers, 875,000 plastic cups. So thank you to Elephant Box for your incredibly timely email. You will not know how timely that was because I hadn't done any of that research.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. They're doing the work for you, these guys. Great.

James Piper: Yes. I did do my own research too. I found a report from Powerful Thinking called the Show Must Go on. The estimated UK festivals generate about 24,000 tonnes of waste a year. That's across 279 summer festivals.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. There's a lot of festivals about, aren't there?

James Piper: It is a lot of festivals. I think this was quite a dated report. I think it was 2015, I found it and it said, with 68% heading to landfill. And we'll come on to that a little bit in this section. So we are going to come on to Glastonbury. But I guess what I wanted to do first is look at an exemplar festival, you know, what's the best festival and what could Glastonbury achieve if it really. If it really wanted to? And I was struggling because there's so many festivals, so many initiatives. And then I came across an organisation called A Greener Future, which is a not for profit company and they have an award called International Greener Festival. And I thought, I'll just look at the winners of that.

Robbie Staniforth: Easy. They've done the work for you again.

James Piper: And then the first winner I looked at, which was the Green Gathering, I think bit of confusion as to which year they won because A Greener Future has them winning in 2023. And I think on their website A Green Gathering, or the green gathering said 2022. So they won in the last few years. And by the time I'd finished researching them, I thought, well, there's so much in here, there's so much content. I actually can't look at any other festival.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, what? This is the best in class and.

James Piper: I believe it's held in Chepstow. And Robbie, you used to live in Chepstow. So I am a betting. I actually don't know the answer to this, but as a betting man, I'm sure you've been to this festival.

Robbie Staniforth: You got me. Yes.

James Piper: I knew it.

Robbie Staniforth: I have been. Yeah. I've been a couple of times, actually, when I used to live in Chepstow. I've not been since, unfortunately. But it's one of those big events that if you live nearby and certainly if you're into the environment, sustainability, etc, you go. So I'm not sure what you're about to say, but I can give you my lived experience of. Of whether I saw it or not. There were so many things that I can't actually call all of them to mind. So I'm looking forward to having my memory refreshed about this festival I went to, at least I think around 2018, 2019.

James Piper: So this trash talk is going to be me doing my research and Robbie going, oh, yeah, 25 minutes of that. Okay, prepare yourself, everyone. My first question, actually, Robbie, is how many people do you think

00:10:00

James Piper: were there when you went? Because I couldn't get attendee numbers, I saw that at its peak it had about 20,000 attendees, which would put it about 10 times smaller than Glastonbury at its peak. But Glastonbury is about 200,000. What do you reckon when you were there?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, hard to make a guess at it, but I wouldn't have thought it was more than 10,000, to be honest. I would say it's under 20,000. 20,000 or under? I would say, yeah, yeah, that's what.

James Piper: 20,000 at its peak means.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: Probably when you went, it was smaller. Hey, that's maths. The first festival was held in 1994, the first green Gathering, and it's currently, as I said, held in Chepstow, which is just across the bridge from us. And this festival actually has a history with Glastonbury. So it started as a place for members of the Ecology Party to meet and the Ecology Party became the Green Party. So in the uk, one of our political parties is the Green Party, and the members of that group then became involved in Greenfields, which is an area of Glastonbury.

Robbie Staniforth: Yes, yeah. Famous area.

James Piper: Very famous, yes. So in 1994, it opened as its own festival and in its first year it had about 2,000 people. Now, there's loads of interesting history to this, loads of politics. There's like undercover police, there's all sorts of things that are worth looking up if you're interested in the Green Gathering, it was actually cancelled in 2009 for one year, which they felt was Very political.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, but that's for another podcast.

James Piper: It's for a different podcast, but it's worth looking up if you're interested in that history. Definitely have a look at the Green Gatherings website. They've got quite a lot of interesting history stuff now, but for us, we're interested in sustainability. And helpfully, on their website, there was literally a link called how green, question mark. Gosh, I wish every website had that. It's so much easier. Our job would just be, like, so easy if every website just said how green? And then you were on, like, a really bad website and it was like, not very.

Robbie Staniforth: That's all you need to know.

James Piper: But in this example, very green. So I thought we'd just go through some of the things I found most interesting. So if we start with electricity, because electricity is one of the biggest things that festivals have to deal with, Obviously they have to run stages, food venues, all that kind of stuff. And what lots of festivals do now is use solar. So they bring their own solar in. And the Green gathering uses between 100 and 150 solar panels. And most. Most of their power is solar.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Okay, Right. I don't remember the solar field or the field that was dedicated to solar panels, because that must be what it looks like, mustn't it? Like one of those temporary farmer's field full of solar panels. Where else are you going to put them?

James Piper: Yeah, that's it. I had a picture of it. They were, like, lying at an angle in a field.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. So already it's not triggering a single memory. I'm not sure how useful I'm going to be.

James Piper: What year did you go?

Robbie Staniforth: 2018, I think it would have been.

James Piper: I'm sure those solar panels were there then. Okay, this is not going to be a section where Robbie just goes, oh, yeah, it's gonna be a. I have no idea what you're talking about. They had an interesting stat that it took more power to run. Ice Green. Great name for an ice cream stand.

Robbie Staniforth: Ooh, ice cream. Nice.

James Piper: Than the festival's main stage.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow.

James Piper: Really took more power to run the ice cream.

Robbie Staniforth: Gosh, that just shows you what refrigeration takes up, doesn't it? Compared to what a massive sound system. That's crazy.

James Piper: It's unbelievable, isn't it? And some of their power is generated by wind, pedal, or stored in batteries charged whilst driving to the event, which I thought was very interesting.

Robbie Staniforth: I saw the pedal bikes. You could jump on those yourself and help contribute to the power generation. So I do remember that. Yes.

James Piper: Well done. Robbie, you're adding value. But they don't have any generators, which is great. You know, generators tend to be seen in quite a negative light because they can be run with biofuels, they can be run in different ways, but ultimately they are fuel powered, whereas, you know, wind, pedal, solar, that's going to be so much better. So it's nice that they're a small enough festival that they're able to do that. And one of the things I thought was really interesting is they have a reusable crockery bit. I don't know if you saw this. I think it's called Rock and Crock, I think.

Robbie Staniforth: What, like a station with all the reusable crockery though?

James Piper: Yeah, and I think you can sort of use it for any of the food stands, so you can take part in. I think it's called Rock and Croc, apologies if I'm wrong. And they use solar ovens. So literally, you know, a little device that's powered by the sun to generate heat, to heat the washing up water for those reusable crockeries.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, wow, okay, very cool. Yeah, no, I can't say I remember that or checked it out.

James Piper: I think Rock and Croc might be a new thing.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that sounds very flash.

James Piper: Now, transport is one of the biggest issues for festivals. People actually getting to the festival and across all websites you look at with festivals, and I've looked at many for this week, it's commonly the biggest issue. I think I read for the Green Gathering that they were saying 90% of their

00:15:00

James Piper: carbon comes from people travelling to the event.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow, okay. What, for their event?

James Piper: Yeah, people. People getting there. Guests and visitors getting there. Because they're so decarbonized as a festival. 90% of the carbon comes from, you know, people driving there in cars.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: So they had some stats, they said 15, so 1 5% of adult festival goers arrive by public transport. Bike or foot. Gone. Robbie, reveal.

Robbie Staniforth: Thank you very much. I got there on my electric bike with my daughter on the back of it.

James Piper: Amazing. That's great. And 40 drove and 45 were passengers. Okay, so 40% of people basically had the car emissions because obviously once you start car sharing you can reduce that right down. But I'd say for a green festival, actually that's quite low, the public transport, bike and foot. But I think that's quite a challenge, particularly if you're like it somewhere like Chepstow, it's a bit more rural, it's a bit hard to get to. You know, Chepstow has a Train station, doesn't it?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it does, yeah. It has a good train station. And I remember the shuttle bus going back and forth and it being very busy, but obviously just packed full of the few people or the 15% or whatever that are going via train.

James Piper: Yeah, that's it. And so for food, so we've sort of done electricity, we've done transport for food and drink. All the food stalls there are vegetarian and half in 20, 24 were vegan. So we've talked before about reducing meat. Reduces your carbon.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: And as I said before, all food waste and single use has this kind of crock and rock option for reusable crockery. But anything they're using that's single use, any serveware, anything like that has to be home compostable. And what is interesting is they have a guy called John. Compost John. Did you meet John Compost John?

Robbie Staniforth: No, I didn't, but he sounds like an absolute legend.

James Piper: He seems to have been there for years. Lots of people know compost.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: So throughout the festival, they're building up this massive compost pile.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: You know, everyone's sort of coming together. Compost John's looking after it. Compost John then turns it into compost over the course of. Over a period of time, whatever that is. And they use that compost to grow the veg for the crew. Food.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Very circular.

James Piper: It's really, really nice. And that's how you. I mean, this is the thing you can make home compostable work when you've got a Compost John.

Robbie Staniforth: Absolutely, yeah.

James Piper: This guy knows what he's doing, he's the expert. And, you know, we can do it at home, but if you've got a. If you've got your very own compost expert, then you know it's going to work.

Robbie Staniforth: Absolutely, yeah.

James Piper: And what I found interesting is, as a caterer, if you decide not to supply reusable serveware or presumably work within their croc and rock scheme, you have to pay a 50 pound surcharge.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. Fines. So that probably goes to pay Compost John maybe for his services to the community.

James Piper: Yeah, possibly. Thank you, Compost John. If you're listening, with drink, they don't sell bottled water and only offer refills into reusable bottles. So you've forgotten your reusable bottle. You're on the cider for a weekend.

Robbie Staniforth: Absolutely, yeah.

James Piper: So we don't have bottled water, but we do have cider, beer, wine, cocktails. And all the bars use reusable cups, which is great. So, you know, Just some really nice things around, food and drink.

Robbie Staniforth: I must say that there was very, very little litter and just bins. And it did make for. The atmosphere was just cleaner as a consequence of not having all of this stuff. It was just more pleasant being in a field without sort of stuff lying everywhere.

James Piper: Okay, Robbie, I'm going to ask you about the bins, then. So we said earlier that 68% of festival waste used to go to landfill. So I think that was back in 2015. So that would mean, what, 32% was recycled? Well, in 2022, green gathering achieved a recycling rate, including composting, of 86%.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Wait, that's. That's pretty good, isn't it? That's unbelievably high.

James Piper: It's amazing. And the waste produce have reduced to 8.96 tonnes, down from 13 and a half tonnes in 2016. So when we compare that to Glastonbury, just note that they are at less than 10 tonnes. Glastonbury is significantly higher than that. Even though, you know, arguably it's a much bigger festival, of course, but it might be 20 times bigger. Yeah, well, Glastonbury has waste produced of 200 times that.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Okay. Even though it's only 20 times bigger.

James Piper: So just by encouraging reusables, bringing your own stuff, making reusables work, they have significantly reduced the amount of waste that's created. So, Robbie, let me ask you about recycling bins. Do you remember how many bins there were in each bin section?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. No, there were lots

00:20:00

Robbie Staniforth: lots of bins. I'm gonna go for eight or nine, I think.

James Piper: Okay. So they actually have 14 categories of bins.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. Gosh, that's comprehensive.

James Piper: Which is amazing because they're in Wales, and in Wales they typically use seven. And in England, everyone complains about potentially using four or five bins, where here.

Robbie Staniforth: They have four, 14 different waste streams. Wow.

James Piper: Gone then. Do you want to guess the 14?

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, so metal, glass, paper and card. Plastic drinks, bottles. Don't know. Plastic?

James Piper: Yeah.

Robbie Staniforth: Aluminium cans. Have I said that yet? No, I said metal, didn't I? No.

James Piper: Okay.

Robbie Staniforth: I'm already running out. There must be food waste and there must be something for the, like, cups, the. The composting thing. Yeah.

James Piper: Pretty good. I think you got six or seven. Sorry, I've. I lost count halfway through because you were sort of combining them. So the 14 they have are metal, glass, cardboard, paper drinks cans, food cans, dirty paper plates, cups and wooden utensils, food waste, nappies and wipes, plastic pet drinks, bottles, plastic trays, plastic HDPE milk bottles, plastic wrap and Tetrapak cartons.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow, that's a lot of subdivision of plastic, isn't it?

James Piper: That's how you achieve an 86% recycling. Right.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Nappies and wipes got its own bin. Pet drink bottles is separated from HDPE milk bottles. That's crazy.

James Piper: It's amazing. And the residual is sent for incineration and so 14% of the waste will be sent for incineration. But when you break it down to 14 bins like that, you can do a lot of recycling.

Robbie Staniforth: That's crazy good.

James Piper: Yeah. So they had a few other things just to do recycling. So the wristbands to get in were made of post consumer recycled plastic, which is great. Plastic glitter is banned, which is. I mean, we hate glitter. On this podcast, as we've talked about. And I like this note. And bio glitter is discouraged. And that just made me laugh because I thought, you can't go to a festival and not have glitter. Even this, the Green Festival, is willing to accept bio glitter, which, by the way, is just a, you know, marketing ploy, in my opinion.

Robbie Staniforth: Still discouraged, though.

James Piper: Discouraged. But you still can't ban all forms of glitter at a festival, it turns out.

Robbie Staniforth: Absolutely.

James Piper: Some of my favourite initiatives from this festival, I just picked out the three that I really liked. They don't use plastic hazard tape to cordon off areas, so for safety, they actually crowdsource homemade red and white bunting and then they offer free or discounted tickets to those who supply the bunting. I really like that.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that's cool.

James Piper: They have Moonlus to encourage washable period products. So they provide sinks in a private space. And I'm just like, God, at a festival, a sink in a private space is like gold dust.

Robbie Staniforth: That's in demand to do that.

James Piper: That's amazing. To encourage reusable period products. And they have a campaign called Don't Be a Mug, which is a campaign to get people to bring their own mug. And they offer them for hire if people forget theirs for coffee and tea.

Robbie Staniforth: And that's a beautiful thing because sometimes you do just forget you're a good person, like that woman in the queue, Earthfest, but you just forget your mug. The one thing that they didn't do but I thought was brilliant from another festival I went to Fire in the Mountain, which is sort of in West Wales, near Aberystworth, is you pay £5 for your bag of recycling when you get in and you get the money back if you go to a recycling disco station and do like a half an Hour period where you're separating waste, basically, while also dancing to kind of disco music. It's, like, really fun. And it's one of those great things where if you can gamify sustainability and green practises, people really engage it, I must say. The green gathering, the bicycles, the pedal power was really popular. There's just kids that all day cycling their hearts out generating electricity because it's really fun. So my top tip would be, and what I think they do really well, is to make all of this stuff actually fun and engaging and sort of the purpose of being there, to kind of expand your horizons rather than it's a drag to have to sort A from B from C. So you're at.

James Piper: Glastonbury, you're having a lovely time. Hopefully it's not too muddy. You want to know a little bit about Glastonbury? Let's go through that. So it was founded in 1970 and is arguably the UK's biggest festival. How would we describe it to an international audience, Robbie? It's like a mini city, isn't it?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it is a city. Basically.

James Piper: It's almost a thousand acres. To put that in perspective. Coachella is 642 acres, Leeds is 600 and Reading is 100. And it has a capacity, as I said earlier, of about 200,000 people. Now, there was Emily Evis, who organises it. She's the daughter of Michael Evis, who started. It was on a BBC podcast this week, actually, called Sidetracked. And there were some really interesting things in that because she was saying, actually this year they've cut it by a few thousand people to ease

00:25:00

James Piper: the crowding.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, right. They're just running out of space and.

James Piper: They'Ve had to make some of the stages, you know, the stage areas bigger because they know that people are kind of less drawn to the main act and more spread out. And so they're just trying to work that through. Okay, now, what she said, actually, that I found interesting was they noted a shift in how people move since COVID happened. So people now are more likely to move in herds. And a lot of their comms at the moment, a lot of their signage is like, by the way, did you know there's 10 other ways to get to this place you're trying to get to? Because everyone's just sort of going down one path.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: Now, when I heard that, I thought, that's great for recycling because you can just put your bins in specific places and you can be really clear about your kind of communication. So actually I see the opportunity in that rather than the risk that she sort of highlighted. As I said, we're on a different scale. The Green gathering produced about 10 tonnes of waste and Glastonbury is about 200 times that at 2000 tonnes of waste per festival. And they've always been keen to invest in initiatives to reduce impact on the environment. They've always been that kind of festival. I think their message has always been like Love Worthy Farm, which is where it's hosted. So Love Worthy Farm, leave no trace. And when the festival is not on, the site is a working farm and every five years they have a year off to let the ground recover. So.

Robbie Staniforth: And that's next year, I think.

James Piper: Yeah, I think so, yeah. They're always conscious of keeping, you know, keeping the site as usable as possible. So if we go through some of the things that Green Gathering had and just kind of compare them to Glastonbury. So if we think about electricity and Energy, as of 2023, Glastonbury is powered entirely by renewable fuels. They've installed solar panels, an anaerobic digester, a biogas plant. They have wind turbines. I think they have two wind turbines. There was one installed in 1994 and they installed a new 28 metre one in 2023. And that one produces enough energy in a day to power 300 fridges.

Robbie Staniforth: These fridges seem a right bind, don't they? We need to all drink temperate drinks.

James Piper: And any generators they use use renewable palm oil. Free fuel made from waste cooking oil, basically. So they do use generators. I mean, it's just. It is like a mini city. You have to. Yeah, but always using renewable fuels. In terms of transportation, they've got more than 40,000 people. Of that, 210,000 arrive by coach, train and bicycle. It's probably a bit far for us to cycle, although we could do it.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, you could do it. And just with all your stuff is the problem, isn't it?

James Piper: With my wheelie bin a booze. Interestingly, they had an article on their website which went out just before I was scripting this episode called How To Get To Glastonbury. And that included a personal carbon calculator to work out the best way to arrive. So you said where you lived, how you were going to get there and it would recommend other options to you.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, clever.

James Piper: Very, very good. So if I went in my electric car, it was five kilogrammes of CO2 equivalent to get there. If I got the train, it would have fallen to three kilogrammes. And if my car wasn't electric. That would have been as high as 17. We're not very far from Glastonbury here in Bristol. So, yeah, I was. It was just interesting to give me that. Okay. I could have my impact here if I took the train rather than driving.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: And very famously, whenever you talk to someone about how to get a ticket to Glastonbury, they always say, try and get the coach ticket. Right. Because they're sold first. I think the coach tickets.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, okay.

James Piper: Less people join the queue, so it's slightly easier to get one, I think.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I reckon that's marginal, but yeah.

James Piper: Yes. So when we talk about recycling, in 2019, Glastonbury banned the sale of single use plastic bottles. And so after we went, Robbie, we haven't experienced this. And they only allow the sale of crisps in compostable packets. As we said earlier, festivals are a perfect use for compostables. All serveware has to be compostable, reusable, and all the cutlery has to be made from FSC assured wood. So Glastonbury on their website said it recycles and reuses half of the waste it produces. I personally think they can do a lot better. I mean, recycling half the waste, it's good. It's slightly better than the national average, you know, 44%. But. But we have just talked about a festival that was achieving 86% and I think in a closed environment you can do better than half. I appreciate the scale of it makes it challenging, but I'm sure there's more that could be done. Yeah.

Robbie Staniforth: And I think we'll have to leave for another episode. All of the building waste that comes out of these festivals, you're building a mini city over the course of a month. I've got a friend who runs the build at the Greenpeace stage and it's really interesting, the difficulties on what you do with all that wood and the nails and the screws and all of the things that they. They temporarily thr up these stages and things. We'll probably have to fold that into next year's festival episode or perhaps into a construction and waste episode. Coming soon.

James Piper: Excellent. And let's come on to tents very quickly because we've all seen fields of tents

00:30:00

James Piper: left over after any festival. Right.

Robbie Staniforth: Classic.

James Piper: Glastonbury currently is urging ticket holders to bring sturdy equipment that could be reused. I had a quick look. I could get a four person tent for 35 pounds and I'm like, that's not going to last longer than the weekend, you know, and and the gulf here was huge between a cheap one, a 35 pound tent and, and like a 200 pound tent. There wasn't really a middle ground. It was like you're either buying a good tent or you're buying a cheap tent. And, you know, I think depending on your income and all that kind of stuff, you're going to make that decision and then you might find that it doesn't last very long.

Robbie Staniforth: On the tent theme, I just saw just this morning that Decathlon have started something. Unfortunately, Decathlon, there isn't one in Bristol, but this outdoor retailer, I wish we had one. They've started this no Tent Left behind campaign and basically what they're saying is they'll refund a anyone's tent that they buy between June 9th and September 14th this year. You can use the tent for Glastonbury, but you just need to return it in perfect condition and they'll give you money back onto a gift card. I did read all the T's and C's you need to become a Decathlon member and you need to make sure that the tent isn't damaged, stained, wet, contaminated, altered, and it's got all the original parts, so the sheet, the tent pegs and things like that. But my tent, which I've had for several years now, is basically still as good as new. Having pitched it and put it down many different times. I think the only thing it wasn't clear in the T's and C's is do you have to pack it down in the exact same way as it came out? Because nobody can do that with a tent.

James Piper: It's so true. It's like a sleeping bag. I think it's interesting. I think the problem is people aren't leaving behind tents that are unblemished and aren't stained and all that stuff. People are leaving behind the tent that got a rip in it or got an issue. And so I don't know how much this will stop it. I guess that's an observation, but it's a really good initiative if you can keep your tent clean. Having said that, apparently since 2019, Glastonbury said more than 99% of tents and camping equipment have been taken home after the festival, which is great, but of course 1% is still 2,000 people. So that's a huge amount of equipment.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it's big.

James Piper: They have around a thousand litter picking volunteers that arrive on site on the Monday and I read an article that said they're done by the Monday afternoon. It's amazing.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. And They've all gone home with two tents each. If I've done the math right.

James Piper: And they are quoted as saying recently, things have got better since they introduced reusable packaging and reusable serveware. There is a lot less litter on site, which is great. So, I mean, just to summarise this, trash talk, festivals like Glastonbury, where you're locked in for a few days, are the perfect opportunity for compostables and reuse. It allows you to create a closed system and clearly that is working. We're seeing people say, well, there's less litter every year as we move to more compostables and reusables. The short term nature of a festival allows them to go off grid, as lots of festivals have now. I guess what we would say, it's too late for the people already at Glastonbury. But if you're listening to this and you're going to a festival later in the year, obviously try and use public transport. It makes a huge difference to the festival's carbon emissions. And please don't be part of the 1% that leave a tent behind. Please buy a good one, Use it for many years. And I guess the thing I found most interesting doing this research is all festivals are making efforts to be green. And it used to be that you would sort of have your green festivals and your Glastonbury's or actually Glastonbury was always quite green, but you'd have your green festivals and like your music festivals, wouldn't you? Or I don't know what the other category is.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, just pure hedonism. Don't worry about rubbish.

James Piper: Yeah. And it does feel like that gap has closed massively. And now most, if not all, festivals are trying to work out how to be greener. Which is. Which is just great news. Additions and corrections. We haven't had a correction in a couple of weeks. So please, if you hear anything that you think, oh, I could correct them on that, feel free to write in. We get lots of emails, but most of it just additions at this point. We talked about reuse in France. I had a look back, it was in episode 36. And I'm just back, actually, from France and Belgium.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes.

James Piper: And I thought I'd have a little kind of real focus on reusable packaging and I couldn't believe how good it was, really. Yeah. I went to a park, actually, in Paris and I could not get a takeaway coffee. It was impossible. And this park I went to, it was only drinking.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. And you love a Single use paper cup as well.

James Piper: I don't love a single use paper cup, but I knew you were going to say that. But you could, you could bring your own cup or you could have a dine in or take in option and you drink it at the park and bring it back. It was very, very impressive. They had beer, coffee, food, everything was in reusable packaging. It's just great to see. We also had Paul from Discord and Paul was commenting on your discussion about smartphones, Robbie, and he has been reading a lot about the environmental impact of photography,

00:35:00

James Piper: which included smartphones. And according to a book he's been reading, camera geologica, 84% of the stable elements in the periodic table and 16 of the 17 rare earth elements are found in smartphones.

Robbie Staniforth: Get out of town. So it's got that many different elements in it.

James Piper: It's mad.

Robbie Staniforth: That's crazy.

James Piper: So we've got to recycle our smartphones, We've got to recycle them properly. There's lots of good stuff in there. Don't leave them in the drawer for 10 years and go, what am I going to do with this Nokia 3310 now? Just send it for recycling. Thank you so much, Paul. And as always, we'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, Eco Surety, who are on a mission to rid the world of unnecessary packaging. They help brand navigate the tricky world of extended producer responsibility. But that is not all. They also collaborate on some incredible recycling projects and consumer awareness campaigns for those tough to recycle materials. If you're an organisation looking to make smarter packaging choices, check them out@ecosurity.com Now, Robbie, I know you're going to have a review of the week, I know you are.

Robbie Staniforth: Yes, I do.

James Piper: But I'm thinking I might hijack it.

Robbie Staniforth: Whoa.

James Piper: Sorry.

Robbie Staniforth: Just one thing. You were giving me this review of the week and you've gone and hijacked it.

James Piper: No, you've got rubbish news now. You've got residual rubbish.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yeah.

James Piper: That'S when I find out Robbie hasn't prepared any of that. Yeah, because we got WhatsApp, didn't we, from a friend of mine.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes. Oh, that was a great review.

James Piper: So what do we call this James review on the streets?

Robbie Staniforth: Real life reviews, James. Real life reviews.

James Piper: So, yeah, I had a WhatsApp from a friend the other day saying, this will make you smile and it did. By the way, I am on the train coming out of London and there is a chap on a table near me telling a colleague all about talking rubbish and how he uses it as a source of info for doing his job. Full of brilliant facts and insights, apparently.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, I know. This is amazing.

James Piper: It is amazing. So right now, there's my friend going, oh, yeah, I sent James that message. And there's also someone who was sat on the train thinking, that was me.

Robbie Staniforth: I've been found out. I need to keep my voice down a bit more in future.

James Piper: Well, you don't, because we are delighted. But if anyone wants to sit on a train saying they hate talking rubbish, then, yeah, please keep your voice down.

Robbie Staniforth: Keep your voice down. Keep it, keep it to the vestibule.

James Piper: So, thank you so much to whoever was on the train saying that they enjoyed talking rubbish. It genuinely made our week and I felt I needed to say it. So on social media, you can follow us obbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcastmail.com, you can WhatsApp us or join our disc discord. The links of everything is in the show notes and the easiest way to engage with us and listeners of the show is definitely through that discord. So have a. Have a join of that. We've got like 200 people there now. Also, remember, we've got a petition going on around dog poo bags, so if you want to get access to that petition and sign it, we would be super grateful. And the link again will be in our show notes, rubbish or not. So I was trying to think what would work really well with festivals.

Robbie Staniforth: Yep.

James Piper: And I thought a disposable barbecue. You might have one at a festival.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it's a sort of good one, isn't it? You. You can get those packed down barbecues, can't you, that you. You could take, you know, a reusable, proper one. Yeah, those sort of like travel ones where you can make them fold almost flat. Although, gosh, you. You got to dedicate some, some room to it compared to taking your alcohol, James.

James Piper: Yeah, absolutely. So what do you reckon, Robbie, disposable barbecues, rubbish or not?

Robbie Staniforth: Well, I spoke to some of the guys in aluminium recycling and they say that the foil tray at the bottom of those things are just the same as foil trays, a bit slightly thicker, but used for food packaging that you can recycle. So I would say it's definitely rubbish as a whole item, but if you're willing to let the whole thing cool down, obviously takes several hours and then pop the lid open, put the, the metal kind of, what's called grill part in the rubbish, put the ash and the Coal in the rubbish and you can even rinse the aluminium foil tray. If you scrumple that up, you probably. And you definitely can recycle that bit of it. But as a whole item I think it's rubbish, isn't it?

James Piper: Yeah, I think you got it. That was a great summary. So I think the thing about cooling is really important. I found an article in Bristol waste website where they were saying if disposable barbecues are not left to cool completely, they can cause fires. And in one recent lucky escape, a member of the public reported a still warm barbecue smouldering in a Bristol bin. Luckily they reported it in time for a crew member to dampen the hot ashes and remove it before the whole bin caught fire.

00:40:00

James Piper: So yes, I think let it cool down, take several hours as you say. Maybe use some water or something to cool it down faster if you're in a rush. But make sure it's fully extinguished and that ash that's left over and the charcoal is definitely rubbish. It's actually quite dangerous for compost.

Robbie Staniforth: Really?

James Piper: So you shouldn't use it for compost. Yeah. Because it's covered in like self lighting gel. You know, like how you just have to.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, it's not like normal coal, you'd buy in normal wood ash, but even.

James Piper: Normal coal I couldn't find much use for it now. Wood, yeah, wood ash is good. So if you've got like a wood burning fire and you've got ash, you can use that in your compost.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: But typically the coals in a disposable barbecue are rubbish.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: As you say, the best thing to do if you want to be the best recycler, take the grill off, pour out the coals, wash out the aluminium and scrumple it into a ball. And scrumple it into a ball. Scrunch it into a ball. Scrumple.

Robbie Staniforth: Scrumple could be a word.

James Piper: Is it? We're going with it. Scrumple into a ball. I've got festivals on the brain. I'm like scrumpy scrumple. She scrumpled it up and tossed it in the waste paper basket is one of the like examples the dictionary has given me.

Robbie Staniforth: That's exactly what you would do is scrumptious it.

James Piper: Enjoy. Scrambling rubbish news. For listeners who haven't been kind of following our latest movements and realise that we're doing slightly different format, we've introduced rubbish news which is where Robbie and I find our favourite story of the week. Mine is about drinks, litter on beaches, falling because of drs.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, deposit return schemes.

James Piper: Absolutely. You're going to hear me partially be enthusiastic about a deposit return scheme here.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow, that's rare.

James Piper: Yes. So there is a report by Reloop called Littered with Evidence, which looked at 80 countries and found that in areas that had DRS, litter was 54% down compared to areas that didn't have DRS. So, yes, litter levels, if you had a DRS, it was 63% lower for plastic bottles, cans were 40% lower and glass was 41% lower. And they actually cited Ireland, which is always quite an interesting one because Ireland have only recently introduced a DRS. They introduced it in February 2020. There was a 30% reduction in cans found littered and 20% in plastic bottles since the introduction of that DRS. And that is the lowest bottle and can count for 25 years.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay. People are valuing these containers.

James Piper: Yes. Now, this is my question. So if I had to be not negative about drs, but ask the probing question. The question is, does a DRS reduce litter because of the money, or does a DRS reduce litter because you suddenly have a h*** of a lot more bins? One of the biggest issues with on the go recycling is a lack of bins, you know, and it takes me ages to find a recycling bin when I'm out on the go. When you have drs, suddenly every store has to host a bin and if you have lots of bins, then you're less likely to have litter. So I do think this is a really interesting report. I do think DRS reduces litter. I think we can all agree with that. The question is, if you didn't have DRS and you just took and you put a bin in every store and you put a bin everywhere, would you also reduce litter? Is it the money that's driving the reduction in iter, or is it just that a DRS by default means you have a load more bins and you know where they are?

Robbie Staniforth: Gosh, yeah. Such a hard question to answer. I get your logic, but honestly, I reckon these 20ps, they all add up, don't they? So that. That's got to be driving people the money.

James Piper: I'm okay to be positive about drs, but, you know, I just. Let's see what happens when it's introduced in England. I can't wait.

Robbie Staniforth: So, sticking with the litter theme, my rubbish news for this week is also about litter too. Not in quite so good news as your report that you find, James, only four fines have been issued by West Oxfordshire District Council in the past decade.

James Piper: Wow.

Robbie Staniforth: Four Just four in an entire decade.

James Piper: Imagine if you're listening to this and you're one of those four, you got.

Robbie Staniforth: Really unlucky that day. You got really unlucky. And basically there was this Freedom of Information request that I think the BBC did, and it showed that across all of the councils In Oxfordshire since 2015, there was about 401 of these fixed penalty notices for the offence of littering. So in other parts of Oxfordshire, they are handing out some fines, still not that many. And this one spot, West Oxfordshire, they only handed out four

00:45:00

Robbie Staniforth: four fines in a decade. So one of the other tools in the arsenal you've just talked about, the carrot of the deposit. Well, this is the stick of a fine if you're littering. And it seems like they haven't been wielding that stick very much in West Oxfordshire District Council, these fines. The problem is they can only be given when people are actually caught in the act of littering. So what are the chances of an officer being there and seeing it, or there being some sort of footage who's going to bother looking through CCTV footage for litterers type thing? So a spokesperson for them said fixed penalty notices for littering can only be issued when individuals are directly observed committing an offence, which can limit the enforcement opportunities. So in many cases, litter found in public areas does not include identifying information, making it pretty difficult to take formal action. So this is one of those things where if you actually print people's name and addresses, I'm not sure about the GDPR worries there would be with that and put it on items of packaging and then we could trace back who has either deliberately or accidentally littered something. So unfortunately we're saying, oh, there's not enough fines being issued. Must try better West Oxfordshire.

James Piper: Rubbish question. So for our rubbish question this week, we had Moira on Discord. Thank you, Moira. Who was asking a question about ocean bound plastics rapidly becoming our dog poo equivalent.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, gosh, it's theme of the week, theme of the month.

James Piper: Now, this is because back in episode 44, we explained that the Food Standard Agency had published guidance to advise business against using environmental plastic, which included ocean bound plastic in food packaging. And Maura was saying, does that include reusable water bottles that they've given out as a promo which are made of ocean bound plastics? Would this count as food and drink packaging? So I thought actually this question allowed us to go a little bit deeper into what the FSA had actually said.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. So, but the headline is the drinks bottle is not packaging because it's a product this reusable drinks bottle, but obviously it is still food and drink contact because you, you're going to be putting liquids in to drink out of it. But it's not covered by the same bits of packaging legislation, single use packaging legislation, etc.

James Piper: Yes, although I wasn't sure about that, so I dug deeper. Now we had some help from Discord. So thank you to Ian and others on Discord who pointed out there was a piece of legislation called the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 2012. Now this piece of legislation I'll include a link in our link tree if people want to read it. It's quite difficult to read. Applies to all plastic materials intended to come into contact with food. So it will include refillable bottles, storage containers, the camel pack thing, the running bag I filled my booze with at Glastonbury. It will include all of that even if it doesn't come with food and drink when you buy it. If it's intended to have food and drink put into it, it will include under this legislation. Now I think the FSA were referring to this legislation when they came out with this guidance.

Robbie Staniforth: Ah, this one. Okay, fine.

James Piper: So I actually think these refillable bottles probably do come under the FSA guidance and should not be made with ocean bound plastic. Now this legislation has restrictions on things that might make migrate out of plastics with anything that's food contact and it's built on traceability, predictability and strict compliance with chemical safety standards. It is really important when we buy food contact plastic that we know what we're buying and that we know that chemicals won't leach out of it in quantities that are going to harm us. And therefore if you're using recycled content to make that food grade plastic, you have to prove what that recycled content came from. So to dig into that FSA advice, what they said was the composition of both EU and UK plastic materials, including any potential plastic additives, are well studied and potential risks or migration are well defined. If a plastic material is sourced from other parts of the world, it it may be challenging to ascertain if it meets EU UK regulatory requirements, especially if it is produced for local markets. Additionally, it may not be easy to establish whether additional unknown plastic additives have been used in its original production. Now most websites I looked up that said they use ocean bound plastic typically source their ocean bound plastic from Asia. So it's not meeting the UK EU requirements. It it may have been developed for that local market, it's then gone to Asia

00:50:00

James Piper: or it's within Asia for recycling and then it's shipped to be used as food plastic. So that is a concern. They said they hadn't seen enough evidence that the current mechanical recycling processes are appropriate for environmental plastic and ocean bound plastic as an input material. And I guess the bit I liked most is they felt there were better uses for the plastic. Now this is a theme that we need to get a bit deeper into because I've got some other examples of this where what happens is an industry, whatever that industry is, says we need to be better. So dog poo bags say we need to use compostable and biodegradable because that's what customers want. Or water reusable bottle companies say I need to use ocean bound plastic because I like that marketing. No one is thinking about the bigger picture and saying actually ocean bound plastic might be better in printer casing, you know, or this chair. Ocean bound plastic might be better off not in a food contact because the companies that make reusable water bottles want the nice marketing story. They take some of the plastic and what the FSA is saying is actually don't do that, let it go to other places. And you use recycled plastic from curbside collections to keep everyone safe. And there is something about this kind of our job in the podcast and what we're doing is to remind people about the bigger picture and stop individual industries doing things that are harmful because they feel it's better for the planet.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. So they're basically saying use pet drinks bottles to recycle and make new ones. Don't use them for things like fleeces and other non food contact things. And then the ocean bound stuff, which. And other types of plastics where the source is sort of a bit more unknown, unverified. Use those for lower quality things like those fleeces or dog poo bags and other uses.

James Piper: Exactly. So the FSA said in order for us to allow environmental plastic to be used for food contact, the plastic collector would have to be to the same standard and traceability as UK curbside plastic.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow, that's pretty clear. That's a high bar.

James Piper: I mean it will never be. How can it, how can it be? How can you say I plucked this out the ocean or I got it from the street and it's as good as what we put out in our curbside, that is a known entity because it's sold in the UK and we put it out in the uk, it will never meet that standard. So I think in answer to the question, the FSA were referring to a piece of legislation that would include reusable water bottles. And I do think companies that make reusable packaging should avoid using ocean bound plastic. So there are lots of them out there and you guys need to kind of vote with your feet or write to them to say, actually, I need you to meet this legislation because it's really important that we're kept safe. Residual rubbish. So Residual rubbish is a new feature with something that has happened to us this week that made us laugh or cry. As I said, I went on holiday. I've just got back from Belgium, or actually I got back a couple of weeks ago from Belgium and I went to Ghent and I checked into my hotel and the hotel, I'll call them out because they were great, was called the Comic Art Hotel. It was really cool. We had like a comic book theme because, you know, Belgium's like Tintin and.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, okay, very cool.

James Piper: There's lots of comic links. It was like every room had a different comic theme. It's probably the only place I'll allow their marketing to use Comic Sans, because Comic Sans font is ridiculous. But in this environment it was okay. And when we checked it to the hotel, they said, oh, if you don't want to clean, because we were staying for multiple nights, if you choose not to have your room cleaned, then we'll plant a tree on your behalf. I thought, that's amazing, we'll definitely take you up on that. So we said, okay, we don't want to clean. And as far as I'm aware, they planted a tree on our behalf. So that was in Ghent. And then we moved on to Bruges and we checked into another hotel and they didn't offer any of that. I won't name them because this is slightly more negative. They didn't offer anything. They didn't say, do you want to clean? They didn't, you know, it was clear that the default was we'll clean your room every day. So in the morning, Ellie and I left and we spoke to the people cleaning and we said, look, we don't need our room cleaned. You know, thanks, but it's fine. We're happy to reuse towels. We're happy with all of that stuff. We went out for the day and we got back to find a bin liner outside of our room. Yeah, like a bin bag full of stuff. And I thought, oh, this is weird. Someone's done their laundry and they've put it to the wrong room. And I picked it up and I realised it was a bag full of fresh towels, shampoo, soap, conditioner, just everything. You know, even though we'd said, look, we don't need a clean, we don't need any of that stuff, suddenly I had a bag full of fresh stuff and I just thought, I bet lots of people then go, oh, that's nice, I'll just take that in. And it's just completely unnecessary. So it's just interesting. I'm in the same country, you know, Belgium. Two different cities, two different hotels.

00:55:00

James Piper: Very, very different approaches to questionable sustainability.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, what a shame. I hope you left that bag just on the side and they reused it somewhere else the next day.

James Piper: Oh, yeah. Very passive aggressively. I just left. Absolutely.

Robbie Staniforth: So the thing that made this was one that made me laugh. I was at the cricket in Bristol the other day and was chatting with a friend and the podcast came up, as it sometimes does, and it was about barriers to food waste. So we've heard of city foxes jumping in to food waste bins and making a bit of a mess of the place. But this friend said in his part of Bristol, they've got actual badgers and they've seen it. Big badgers, you know, much more terrifying than a little sort of fox that's easily scared off. These badgers come in and absolutely decimate all of the food waste. And so he's just totally stopped doing food waste recycling now. And it was very funny, his description of these badgers just throwing eggshells and tea bags across the road as they're, like, rooting through it. Very funny. But got a serious side. Like, that's the reality of some of the barriers towards food waste. And I didn't have a great answer of what he should do to kind of protect his food waste bins. Because these badges are so strong, they literally just smash the bin open and the lid comes. So regardless of these, like, Tampa clever sort of catches on the lid, these still. These things are still cracking open.

James Piper: Yeah. I have a badger who visits me almost nightly. I have cameras in my garden and I record him and he's digging a very impressive hole in the back of our garden. I'm just seeing where he gets to, to be honest. I'm just like, every day I look at it and it's a bit deeper.

Robbie Staniforth: He's not going after your food waste, though.

James Piper: No, we're pretty good at kind of locking our food waste down. I sort of put the handle up against the wall and it seems to put them on.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, so you think those bins are still good enough? That's why I should be saying to him, you're doing it all wrong.

James Piper: I think Bristol has the new ones that have tamper proof locks and I suspect if he got a newer one it would be okay. The ones that have like a click on the top that you have to click to open.

Robbie Staniforth: So the advice to him is going to be speak to the council, try get a newer bin.

James Piper: Exactly.

Robbie Staniforth: Great.

James Piper: As always, thank you all so much for listening. Thank you for the reviews and engagement. We just, it's the best part of our weekend to do this podcast for you guys and we love getting the opportunity to do it. We can only do that with everyone. Well, we can do it without anyone listening, but it wouldn't be as impactful. So it's so grateful that you listen. We're so grateful that you leave us reviews. As I mentioned earlier, everything is in our show notes. So any links you need to our Discord, WhatsApp, social media, they're all in the show notes. And you can email talkingrubbishpodcastmail.com everything we've discussed today will be on our link tree, which is also in the show notes. And if you are having a lovely time in Glastonbury, I really hope it's not muddy. I really hope it's loads and loads of fun. I hope Rod Stewart turned up. I hope you're having the best time. Thank you all for listening and we will see you next week.

Robbie Staniforth: Bye.

James Piper: Bye.

00:58:07