Recycle your old festival tent

3 Ways to Recycle Your Old Festival Tent

Festivals are a truly wonderful way to enjoy fun, company, and creativity. If you’re one of the people making it a bustling hub with your festival tent set up, you may be asking yourself: what can I do with old tent fabric once I no longer need it? Often, people will leave their tents behind at the end of a festival, but this isn’t the best option for the environment or clean-up crews. Instead, learn about the ways you can recycle or repurpose the tent pieces and the old tent material. Here are three ways you can make sure your tent stays out of the trash and out of the natural world.

Recycling

The standard of taking care of your tent is recycling it responsibly. The festival may have a donation or recycling spot available that they have advertised. Another option is to take the tent straight to a recycling center. It’s important to avoid putting it in your recycling bin, as some parts of the tent may need special care for recycling. Often, recycling tent fabric isn’t possible, and only the poles can be recycled.

Reselling or Donating

There are several organizations or people who may be looking for a tent like yours for their festival. Even when your tent has specific branding, it can provide other people with protection from the elements. Depending on the type of tent, shelters and similar organizations may be able to find a use for it.

Repurposing

You can also effectively use the different parts of your old festival tent yourself. The stakes, poles, and fabric can all be reused for a variety of needs, from protecting furniture to creating clotheslines to making a kite. The tent can be reused to create a gazebo to protect plants or to be a fun weather-resistant feature in your backyard. There are many functional and creative things you can do with tent repurposing.

  • Tent poles

Tent poles can be used for several functional purposes, especially in the garden. As a lightweight and versatile metal, tent poles can be used as support or a trellis for growing plants, ensuring that the plants grow up strong. If you keep the structure of the tent poles intact, you can even create a feature in your garden where a vine plant can create a flowering gazebo over time as it grows around the structure. The poles can also be used as clotheslines for drying laundry outside, or you could even cut the poles down and use them as fence reinforcement or tie the pieces together to create a tripod stand.

  • Tent stakes

The stakes can also be used to keep plants steady or used as plant markers to help you identify your plants and where they are located. Tent stakes are also useful for grounding things like towels, umbrellas, and chairs on windy or rainy days on the beach.

  • Tent fabric

The fabric is the most versatile of the tent pieces, and often all it requires is some handiness with sewing. The material is often durable and waterproof, making it ideal for repairing camping gear and other tents or even creating backpacks, tote bags, or jackets from scratch. The large and wide waterproof material is especially adaptable to becoming a poncho, which could protect you from the rain at a future festival and will be more durable than most ponchos.

You can also create fun arts and crafts with tent material. Because of the bright colors and patterns often used in festival tents, beautiful creations could be made. Along with the poles and some rope, you could create your own kite, which is especially durable to strong winds. The waterproof material can also be used to keep furniture or cars safe from wintery or rainy weather.

Taking Care of Your Festival Tent

Creating something functional or fun out of your old festival tent is not only helpful for the environment but could be useful and enjoyable, as well. If you need a new and durable festival tent to replace one that’s worn out, see what custom tent options Instent offers.