Glastonbury Festival, photo by Maja Smiejowska

Glastonbury Festival is taking a fallow year in 2018. But when the UK festival returns in the summer of 2019, there will be a new ban in place: Plastic bottles will not be allowed anywhere throughout the event site.

While progressive, the new rule shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise for regular festival attendees as it follows similar environmentally friendly campaigns over the years, as the Guardian points out. In 2014, Glastonbury introduced stainless steel bottles and water stations to encourage cost-free refilling. Stainless steel pint cups were also brought into the fold in 2016, along with a “Love the farm… leave no trace” initiative.



“It’s an enormous project; it’s taking a lot of time to tackle with all the different people we work with,” organizer Emily Eavis told BBC 6 Music of the plastic water bottle ban.

Previously, organizers for the long-running festival — which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2020 — estimated that a whopping one million plastic bottles are used over the course of the five-day event.