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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
James Aldridge

Reading Festival aftermath seen in drone pictures of abandoned tents and rubbish

The aftermath of Reading Festival was captured by a paraglider who took to the skies with images showing a sea of tents and rubbish abandoned by festival goers.

Every year since 2016 Andy Bexx has taken his aircraft out to get pictures from above the Bank Holiday festival.

Photos from previous years show thousands of tents left abandoned as revellers headed to trains and their cars to leave on the Sunday night or the bank holiday Monday, reports Reading Live.

This year, the state of the site after the festival appeared to be tidier than in previous years.

In a Facebook post Mr Bexx said: "I was walking by the festival and I saw a lot of people carrying their tent out, I thought that was a good sign and that maybe the site from above would look cleaner after the festival had finished.

Reading Festival rubbish and abandoned tents (Andy Bexx WS)
The main stage area of the festival was quite clear (Andy Bexx WS)

"So I took to the skies to get the usual Reading Festival Aftermath photos for 2019.

Mr Bexx also posted a video of the site in Richfield Avenue before the Festival began on Thursday.  You can see the video above. 

You can check out more of Mr Bexx's flyovers on his YouTube channel .

The Reading Festival site seen from the skies (Andy Bexx WS)
Festival goers were told to take their tent home - but thousands did not (Andy Bexx WS)

Prior to the festival, organisers Festival Republic and Reading Borough Council urged revellers to take their tents home with them.

At the time, Festival Republic boss Melvin Benn said: "We have put in place a number of initiatives to help Reading Festival goers take proactive decisions about their carbon footprint and deal with their stuff responsibly.

"As a company we have committed to eliminating single use plastic by 2021 and reducing our carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2030.

"We do everything that we can, but we need your help too."

Hundreds of items were rescued by Reading charity New Beginnings - which will re-distribute the salvageable items to some of the towns most needy people.

Trustee Penny Hajinicolas said: “It was a really successful day.

Paraglider Andy Bexx regularly takes pictures of the aftermath (Andy Bexx WS)
You can make out the individual tents which have been left (Andy Bexx WS)

“We had thought there might be fewer things to salvage this year but it seemed much the same as in previous years to me.

“We met some of the volunteers at the Queen's Arms for burger and chips before heading to the site.

“We aren't allowed on the site until after about 3pm and we were salvaging until about 7pm."

They collected:

  • 300 sleeping bags
  • 100 tents
  • 30 bags of food
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