Festival information
Being green is fundamental to the Green Man festival (it is one half of our name after all), which is why we are a founding supporter of Vision 2025 and have pledged to reduce our environmental impact by 50% by 2025! So here are some of the ways in which you help keep Green Man green!
With so many lovely festival-goers, it’s understandable that more than half of the waste generated at the festival comes from our guests and is left within the campsite areas. But you can help: once again we are teaming up with Help Refugees and Newport to Calais Aid Collective. They are going to be collecting unwanted, unbroken camping equipment and food that will go to refugees around the world. They will have drop off points in each campsite and near Family Box Office and General Box Office. They particularly would like: tents, sleeping bags, blankets, coats, food and boots. Some donations (particularly food) may also go to local charities.
Please do not dump any camping equipment where you have camped, either take it to the drop off points, or if it is unusable, separate, bag and take to the rubbish/recycling points.
We have teamed up with National Express tickets who offer direct coach travel from around the UK, we have also joined forces with Red Fox Cycling to offer cycle trips to the festival.
Or you could take the train to Abergavenny (with a free shuttle-bus to get you to the festival), if you cycle to the festival we have a free lockable storage for bikes. If you do have to drive and have some spare seats, check out LiftShare to carpool with people from your area.
And we’ve teamed up with Onboard Earth to donate £1 from each car parking pass and £3 from each live-in vehicle pass sold to their cause, which will mitigate the impacts of travel CO2e emissions by investing in climate solution projects. Our 2023 climate investment helped to plant over 1,793 trees in Northern Malawi, protect 493 acres of threatened rainforest and balance 239 tCO2 through a forest & peatland regeneration project in Indonesia.
Plan to eat out at the various amazing food stalls as much as possible when onsite, all of which provide compostable food ware and fair trade produce!
All tea, coffee, hot chocolate, sugar and bananas are Fairtrade. All meat/dairy should be a minimum standard of British Red Tractor. Fish should not be on the Marine Conservation Society’s 'Fish to Avoid' list.
Drinking water is provided throughout the festival site. You do not need to bring heavy loads of water. Bring your own bottles to refill or purchase one at FRANK Water stalls. Our charity pals, FRANK Water will be on-site serving refills of filtered, chilled water. Visit one of the two FRANK Water refill stands or find the roaming FRANK Tank to buy a refill bottle or BYO refill bottle and purchase a wristband to access unlimited refills of filtered, chilled water all weekend. Not only does this cut-down on single use-plastic, this'll also support FRANK Water's incredible initiatives for sanitary & safe water.
Nappy bins are provided within the family campsite and the accessible campsite. By making the extra little effort to keep these separate from all other waste you are helping us to keep our excellent litter pickers happy and hygienic - so a big thank you from them in advance.
This year all of our power will come from hydrogen, solar or hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO). HVO is a fossil-free alternative to diesel, resulting in up to 90% reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions. The solar stage is 100% solar powered and the Omni Tent and Workshop Dome in Einstein’s Garden are powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
We've teamed up with Wild Solar to bring you mobile-phone charging courtesy of solar energy. You can swing by Einstein's Garden for charging points or pre-book here.
Please gather your stubs rather than dropping them! They all have to be picked up so please do your best to help us out.
You won't see plastic straws at our bars, (in fact we've never used them in all these years!). We've calculated that's around 250,000 straws saved since 2007.
Moving to compost loos has been a huge leap for our sustainability goals, as composting toilets are far more environmentally friendly than traditional portaloos. They do not require water, which saves hundreds of thousands of litres of water used for flushing. Zero biocide chemicals are used, which means no intensive treatment at sewage farms. There’s also a dramatic reduction in the amount of trucks involved in the transportation and sanitation process. Within a couple of years the waste will be composted and ready to spread out on local farms, creating a circular loop. Our toilets are run and cleaned by WaterAid, their wonderful team will be happy to tell you all about the benefits of compost loos and their work as a charity. Don’t forget to take a cup of sawdust with you each time you do a number two, this will help reduce smells and break down waste.
This year we’re also working with Peequal to provide female squat urinals (not to be confused with she-wees). Peequal are quicker to use, open air and produce 98% less C02 than portaloos.
We’re not too keen on disposable plastic cups here at Green Man, festival goers will need to purchase a reusable stacking cup, to drink at our bars. Brilliant for carrying 5 pints at once and taking home as a souvenir after the festival, any cups that are left over after this year, we will wash, dry and store to re-use next year.
Reusable coffee cups will be available to buy from our Table Top Coffee stalls and the merchandise tent, or you can bring your own. There will be a 50p discount at our Table Top Coffee stalls if you have a reusable cup.
All food traders packaging and cutlery will be certifiable compostable.
And there will be no disposable plastics on sale across site this year.
Please consider what you bring with you and try and reduce it as much as is reasonably possible. Consider the packaging and leave as much as possible in your recycling bins at home, in 2018 alone we recycled over 8 tonnes of paper and cardboard, this means less to carry too!
Please try not to bring flimsy single use camping gear that won’t last beyond the weekend. Insubstantial gazebos, camping chairs, and single skin tents, aren’t suitable for the Welsh weather, they are terrible for the environment and are difficult to recycle effectively.
It is now law in Wales that all recycling must be sorted and separated before leaving the festival site. So we’ve introduced a new system to help increase recycling at the festival. Please help us recycle as much as we can, you will be given the following bin bags as you arrive on site.
Please try to separate all your recyclables from non-recyclable waste! Perhaps share common bags with your neighbours; rubbish is always a good way of breaking the ice!
Please leave your bin bags at the rubbish holding points located throughout the campsites. If you need more bags you can get these from the Box offices, Keep Green Man Green stall, the Stewards point in Settlement or from any litter pickers you see; so please just ask us.
Arena areas will have plenty of waste bins (oil drums) and recycling bins (wheelie bins). Again, do try your hardest to put your rubbish in the correct bags – it really makes a huge difference!
We've loads of local beers, ciders & tipples on offer. Most are brewed in nearby Welsh breweries, meaning that the carbon footprint of transportation is dramatically reduced!
