Just got back from The Secret Garden Party and as always had a fab time.

However as the question of sustainability increasingly affects me I took a long hard look and mine and my fellow revellers behaviour and I wondered if it made any sense.

If we are honest we still the hedonists of old, from a world of plenty, able to afford to rally against the establishment. Getting drunk, taking drugs and spouting socialist ideals whilst building tent villages, generating huge amounts of rubbish and selfishly having a good time?

Or is it selfish?

When something is awkward or difficult to address do we still tend to bury our heads in the sand and hope that nagging question will just go away? Is life for the living, do we have any control over our destiny and is this kind of entertainment a way to kick back, stop thinking about where it may all go wrong in years to come?

Lets face it – what are festivals about; entertainment with no responsibility. For some its about throwing off the shackles of day to day life and taking some risks with booze, drugs, fags, people – is that so wrong? Is it part of the human condition or does it beg the question: if we can’t even look after our own personal well being how on earth do we think we are going to take enough action to look after the planets, if indeed that is what we think we actually want to do.

Today festivals goers are almost professional in the execution of their attendance. Many build homes from home with awnings and living rooms, we arrive in cars, often there are few alternatives and we leave our rubbish every where. It doesn’t matter how right on, free spirited, trendy left we are we still leave cans, food and fag butts, overflowing rubbish bags etc, on the ground.

At TSGP plastic supermarket bags were blown into fields of corn, there appeared to be little consideration given to recycling rubbish and large amounts of cans and plastic ended up piled up in the general rubbish. It cant be that hard to give everyone who enters the festival a recycling bag for cans and designate drop off points for such items.

The other striking thing is the layer of fag buts that litter the ground, increasing as the days go by. Surely someone could invent personal ashtrays for people who smoke so that fags don’t end up polluting, often rural ground, by the last day anywhere you sat was like sitting in an ashtray. That is despite the fact that the guys who were picking litter were hard at it all day.

Practical information on reducing our impact on the environment should be an essential part of the festival information. There are no excuses for the damage we can cause to the land we party on. Someone does have to pick up the plastic bags and the shit we drop on the floor or walk past and put it somewhere. What we take to a festival and how we transport and dispose of it should be thought about.

On a positive note Festivals are one of the most transparent ways possible to see with our own eyes how much rubbish and sewage 20,000 people can generate with relatively little effort and it’s sobering. What we do about that is another question.

Perhaps if booze and food sold at festivals was cheaper and in the main sourced locally and people were encouraged to bring the bare minimum with them and rubbish was easily separated and recycled and public transport was effective and people had personal ashtrays and didn’t want to set up their semi detached lifestyle on a campsite festivals we would not be quite so environmentally damaging.

To my mind there is still far too much rhetoric and not enough action, we are not prepared to change our lifestyles enough to make an impact, even in our own back yards. Hardly surprising then that big industry and corporations continue to grind on, and do very little to reduce their emissions.

As far as we the general public are concerned the green economy is capitalism with a shiny, new, more easily digested label, what difference will it really make is anyone’s guess?

Without a change in mindset and behaviour we cannot effect the change we need. It is only when people stop wanting the shit the world produces that it will stop producing it. It is not up to someone else to take responsibility for it, it is up to us.

Music festivals talk to huge swathes of people from all backgrounds, they can deliver a message, they have an opportunity to change things from the grass routes up, from the next generation.

“It’s political” Chief Superintendent tells BGG Director

Chief Superintendent Paul Richards admitted to a Big Green Gathering Director that the decision to shut down the Big Green Gathering was political and confirmed to the Chair of the Big Green Gathering that orders had come from the highest level.

During a meeting today between the police and directors of the Big Green Gathering, the superintendent said the decision to shut down the BGG was taken over a week ago, confirming the statement from the BGG lawyer that the ‘injunction was a red herring.’

Directors from the BGG are horrified at this partisan interpretation of licencing law.  Big Green Gathering Chair Brig Oubridge said, “At the multi-agency meeting on Thursday 23rd July, we were still negotiating with the police and the council under the genuine belief that things were progressing and we were continuing to spend money on infrastructure, wages and security.  If they knew they were going to cancel the event, we can only conclude that this drive to increase expenditure appears to be a deliberate attempt to bankrupt the Big Green Gathering.

The injunction served on the Big Green Gathering was primarily addressing the fact that the Big Green Gathering did not obtain the necessary road closure despite the fact that the Highways Agency had previously indicated that this would be done.

The Big Green Gathering has been running an event since 1994 and never before has public safety been an issue.  The BGG has an exemplary record on health and safety and crime levels have always been low for the number of people on site.

Despite the concerns over the behaviour of the Council and the Police, event organisers will work with them to ensure the safety of those at the premises and ensure that they leave the land in an orderly fashion.  Brig concluded, “We are very aware of our responsibilities to those already on the site and very sad for all those who were coming to enjoy one of the most peaceful festivals in the UK.”