A young Lichfield entrepreneur has partnered with a packaging firm to call for an end to festival “tent trash”.
Estimates suggest that around 250,000 tents are abandoned each year as with most unable to be recycled after being left behind at summer events across the country.
But now packaging firm DS Smith has teamed up with EnviroTent – a firm founded at Lichfield’s King Edward VI School in 2020 – in a bid to highlight a more eco-friendly alternative for festival-goers.
The concept for the 100% recyclable tent was developed as part of a Young Enterprise scheme project and Tayla Evans, managing director and founder, has continued to develop the product since.
She said:
“The UK festival scene is an annual source of single-use plastic pollution. That is something people feel uncomfortable about, but it should be guilt-free and fun.
“I would love festival organisers to think about how we can help festival-goers avoid tent trash.”
Tayla Evans
The EnviroTent is designed so that when festivals and other events are other they can be collected and recycled.
Paul Clarke, from DS Smith, said:
“Festivals are at the heart of British summertime, but we’ve all seen the shocking images of the aftermath with abandoned polyester tents.
“Most people may not know that the tents are very hard to recycle and can lurk in the ground for up to 200 years.
“We are used to replacing plastic from supermarket shelves, but in creating cardboard tents, we’re talking about something completely different – we shifted the way we thought about design in order to protect a person, not a product.
“When we met Tayla, we knew that cardboard could have a different and really important role to play in replacing plastic and reducing tent trash, and we are really excited for the difference we can make together so people can create less waste and have a guilt-free festival.”
Paul Clarke
