So this year I had the opportunity to go to Glastonbury Festival in Somerset. The first time going to a festival as an adult at the ripe age of 32!
I was really nervous because:
- I was leaving my 3 sons and husband at home for the longest time I have been away from them.
- I was going to be on the recycling crew starting my shift at 6am till 12noon.
Luckily my sister was coming with me, so I had someone with me not knowing what to expect.
So the deal is, you pay upfront a deposit of £210 to the recycling crew which is refundable as long as you turn up and complete all of your shifts. You also get meal tokens at the end of your shift to exchange for yummy cooked meals in the recycling crews camping field (known as Toms Field) or a packed lunch.
The work can be hard, we had it quite difficult due to the rain and 175,000.00 people treading rubbish into the sticky, almost like glue mud. So you have to be prepared to get mucky! what I have forgotten to say is Toms Field has showers...Yay so it really doesn't matter if you get mucky. I choose to be on the litter picking crew, there are also jobs in the recycling centre or on the tractors. The shift times are also varied.
We arrived on a very hot June day heavy luggage strapped to us with no idea what way we were heading. After asking several marshals' e took about 4 hours to lug our luggage pretty much on a massive detour! Our shoulders hurt and my sister wanted to cry! When we reach Toms Field we were told of a direct rout which would have taken about 30 minutes! A Tip her is to put luggage on a sack truck, or bring your car and park in the blue car park!
On arrival we were given a meal ticket, a festival programme, our recycling gloves and a super cool recycling crew T-shirt. We set up our tents and vegged out feeling slightly depressed over the hours we had lost on our detour to the camping area!!
We went to discover the festival and I was totally awe stricken, the amount of energy and work work of lots of clever people has made farmland in to a magical city!
I loved it, people turning up and just being who they wanted to be, even if it meant dressing up in a bunny onsie!
Recycling Crew
Setting my alarm for 5am was hard! I'm a girl who likes her sleep.
My alarm went off at 5am obviously I snoozed it!! Then it woke me again at 5:15am it then dawned on me, I HAVE to get up! So eyes half open I got myself together ready for the first shift. I was on The Other Stage recycling crew, we met here 6am in the morning. The first day our team leads Pippa gathered us together, brief introduction and explained the job. You get three bags, white for paper, food and any other biodegradable waste, blue bag for cans and plastic and a black bag for land fill items that can't be recycled one example - umbrellas!
So the team gathers in a long line and work together to pick up the waste, it is really satisfying when you turn around and look at the area cleared. As the bags get filled/heavy you double knot them and leave them for the tractor crew to collect and take to the recycling centre.
My first day was good, tiring of course but not too bad.
The next shifts were harder as the festival was in full swing, I felt like I couldn't get the most out of the festival due to having to wake up at 5am. It was hard to find the motivation when waking in the morning to the sound of rain pitter pattering on the tent, especially when just warming to normal body temperature after freezing most of the night.... There was one morning when I just thought I couldn't do it, I didn't care about getting my deposit back. But the thought of all the others on my team who were putting the hard work in soon snapped me out of it. The team/a were somewhat decreasing in size already due to drop outs l, some of which didn't even complete their first shift.
Overall I really enjoyed being on the recycling crew, I just wish I wasn't so shy as I think I would have made a few new friends. As I write I have Glastonbury Blues and cannot wait for the next year.
If you are reliable and hard working I would recommend applying to be on the recycling crew, but don't bother if you don't think you can stick it out.
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