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Abandoned festival tents upcycled into clothes

BBC A woman smiling with a clothes rack behind herBBC
Lauren Mason said her project was a "sticking plaster" for the problem of abandoned tents

A small business in Sheffield is giving a new life to abandoned tents from music festivals by upcycling them into clothes.

Lauren Mason and Benjamin Harman co-founded Retribe after they helped to collect discarded tents at Creamfields and Leeds festivals last summer.

They gathered 50 tents and 30 sleeping bags on their visits, and felt they had to act to stop so much waste heading to landfill.

Ms Mason said: "We’re raising awareness so that people stop doing this."

'250,000 tents abandoned'

The pair decided to use their knowledge of the outdoor clothing industry to turn the waste into sustainable outfits.

Ms Mason said: “I never thought these tents would be as throw-away as they are.”

She said there were misconceptions among festival-goers that their tents would be cleaned up or donated to charity, noticing many had even gone to the effort to pack the tent away, yet still abandoned it.

"No good can come of you leaving your tent," she said.

The Association of Independent Festivals estimated that 250,000 tents are left at music festivals each summer, with most of them being sent straight to landfill.

For this year's event, Leeds Festival has partnered with sports and outdoors equipment store Decathlon to run a tent hiring service, and revellers will be able to return the tents on site.

A woman holding a red hat
The mesh from inside tents is used to accessorise clothing designs

Ms Mason said the business had access to enough fabric and material to use sustainably without the tents, but that she wanted to help with festival waste.

She said: "We don’t want to be the solution, we’re the sticking plaster for this issue."

Emily Cornwaithe, who designs and sews for Retribe, said the firm used all of the trimmings of the tent for decorations on its clothing.

"It's a really cool thing, I think, to look like you're wearing a repurposed tent," said said.

Ms Mason added: "What you get is something really original, really sustainable.

"This is not a tick box exercise, it's action. It's climate action we're doing."

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