An arena being built for Glastonbury Festival 2019 will be made entirely from recycled plastic found on the streets, beaches and parks, the event has confirmed.

The new stage, named ‘The Gas Tower’ and located in the Shangri-La area of the site, will be a 360-degree staging area made by using waste collected in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset areas.

Event organisers have confirmed that the project requires in excess of 10 tonnes of plastic waste and the first beach clean to kickstart the drive will begin on May 11th.

Kaye Dunnings, the creative director of Shangri-La Glastonbury, called it an “important, pioneering project” while in conversation with the BBC, adding that it was “a total game-changer.”

The news comes just months after Glastonbury announced the banning of all single use plastics as Emily Eavis attempts to stem the amount of waste used at the event. It comes as the event claimed that in 2017, Glastonbury got through in excess of 1.3m plastic bottles.

“Obviously we are all fighting the fight against plastic, which is an enormous task but well overdue and we need to make steps in the right direction,” said Eavis. “A vast amount of plastic bottles were gotten through and when you see images of the arena completely covered in old plastic bottles it’s quite haunting.

“We have been working on this during the year off. We spent a lot of time in 2018 working on the logistic side of all this, speaking to suppliers and market managers, area organisers,” she added.

“We are tackling drinking bottles at the moment, water bottles … and we are encouraging people to bring their own reusable bottle but there will also be reusable bottles available on site.”