Cardboard tents reduce festival waste

Two Dutch entrepreneurs could solve the waste problem at music festivals with sustainable tents made from fully recycable cardboard.

As festival season approaches, each year a huge amount of trash is left behind by festival-goers. This includes thousands of cheap tents. Most of these end up in landfills, wasting resources. Dutch company KarTent has come up with a sustainable solution – a cardboard tent. The tent has recently won the prestigious Red Dot Design award. They are designed to be purchased and transported in bulk to festival sites. When the music is over, the company will also arrange removal and recycling of the tents.

KarTent claims each tent can absorb up to 400 percent of its own weight in water and still retain its structural integrity. The cardboard also remains cooler than traditional tents on hot days. Jan Portheine, co-founder of KarTent, explains that the tents are a lot thicker than regular cardboard. Additionally they don’t have, “any coating to ensure they are fully recyclable. It will also stay dry during your event since the water will never penetrate and the structure won’t collapse.” The company claims that the KarTent is more energy-efficient to produce than a regular festival tent, requiring just half the amount of carbon dioxide.

Another fun feature is that the tents can be customized with festival logos or left for festival-goers to decorate. KarTents launched in Australia last year at the Yours and Owls festival in Wollongong and are already in use at other festivals in countries around Europe. The company is hoping to expand even further, and is launching new products, such as cardboard seats, trash cans and pallet boxes made from recycled KarTents. KarTent joins a host of innovative and advanced recyclable products. These include shoes made from recycled gum and packaging that can be returned for reuse. What other everyday products might be made from recyclable materials?