AERIAL photos of the aftermath of the Reading and Leeds Festivals show a wasteland of discarded tents and rubbish left behind by the music fans.

Organisers have been left with tonnes of rubbish to clear up at Bramham Park in Leeds and the Richfield Avenue site in Reading after 90,000 fans attended either weekend festival.

The photographs show acres of discarded tents still standing where the owners couldn’t be bothered to take them down, let alone throw them away properly.

A lot of the tents appeared to be still in full working order but just let on the sites.

At the Reading festival, in Berkshire, some of the camping equipment was being collected and sorted by the charity Festival Waste Reclamation and Distribution who give any undamaged equipment to the homeless and refugee groups.

Last year an estimated £1million of abandoned tents and camping equipment were left at the festival.

Along with tents the pictures show tonnes of rubbish, including single-use plastic, chairs, gazebo’s, sleeping bags and blow up beds.

TENTS JUST ABANDONED

At the Leeds site, Everything Is Possible, a charity set up in 1999, will be carrying out a similar operation and scouring the site for any items that can be passed on to homeless people and those battling drug or alcohol problems.

Organisers of the festivals, Festival Republic, say the salvage operation is put in place in a bid to reduce the amount of rubbish put into landfill or incineration.

But some Twitter users were disgusted by the amount of rubbish just simply left lying around.

‘Laura’ wrote: “I had the most amazing time at Reading Festival, don't get me wrong, but the amount of litter that the goers left lying around absolutely disgusted me. It's not hard to put things in the bin, or even fill a bin bag of your own. Disheartened at the careless actions of people.”

‘Nat’ added: “My partner is currently at @OfficialRandL #ReadingFestival as a trader; he has just sent me this; absolutely disgusting, people are just leaving everything there

tents abandoned & litter! Increase ticket prices next year! Absolute cretins!”

The shocking images come after a man was pronounced dead two days after he was rushed to hospital from the side of a Reading Festival stage as police continue to investigate the unexplained circumstances.

Emergency crews scrambled to the aid of a man who fell ill on Saturday night just before 11pm at Reading Festival. Paramedics tended to him at the side of the music events stage before rushing him to Royal Berkshire Hospital within 40 minutes.

Despite the best efforts of staff at the hospital, the man died two days later on Monday.

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