With the Glastonbury Festival having drawn to a close for another year, the most iconic festival on the planet remains true to its roots as a sustainability pioneer event that effectively balances human activity, resource use and minimal environmental impact. In line with this ethos, the 2016 gathering once again saw SMARTPLY support Greenpeace in playing a crucial role in a cleaner and greener Glastonbury by providing a range of timber panel products that offer low environmental impact and proven longevity.
For this year’s festival, SMARTPLY helped Greenpeace in the creation of a number of new timber structures made from sustainable, durable and moisture resistant OSB3 panels that are an integral part of this temporary town in a field.
SMARTPLY OSB3, in thicknesses of 9mm, 11mm and 18mm, were used by the Greenpeace team to create the forest showers, climbing wall, the Greenpeace information stop, the entrance to the virtual reality dome showing David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef Dive, and new insert sections of an impressive 7-metre drop slide, the emergency exit feature of a tall space rocket. Originally designed for the creation of hoardings, the true versatility of SMARTPLY SITEPROTECT PLUS, a double sided coated OSB3 panel, was demonstrated by the Greenpeace carpenters who built a number of large, reusable time travel seating pods.
It’s not the first time SMARTPLY have helped Greenpeace in their festival vision. Testament to the products’ longevity and durability are previous Glastonbury modular builds including a 24-bay shower block made out of OSB3 which has been in use for a staggering eight years. Extremely popular with festival goers when the mud kicks in, each cubicle was estimated to have handled in excess of 2,666 showers per event. That’s a total of 64,000 showers in their lifetime! At the end of each festival, the block was stored in a barn for 11 months, before being used at the following year’s event. The robust and solid OSB3 has also been used for everything from tables, site offices and a farmer’s market café which is on its third festival outing.
Bob Wilson, Head of Events at Greenpeace UK commented: “Greenpeace first introduced SMARTPLY to the festival world many years ago and we’ve been using it extensively ever since. Over the years we have watched with interest the use of SMARTPLY spread to other festivals. The product range has also expanded giving Greenpeace’s build and decor team many more options when using it to create our entertaining and inspiring features in the field”.
All the timber used to make SMARTPLY is FSC Certified and carefully harvested to preserve the forest’s biodiversity, productivity and ecological processes. Unlike tropical plywood, no long-distance transport is involved as all SMARTPLY OSB is manufactured near to its source in Waterford, Ireland.
The mud, madness and music might be over and now that the 120 carpenters and builders have deconstructed their Greenpeace creations, it will either be reused this year at other festivals such as WOMAD or Shambala and then brought back to life to be reinstated next year at Glastonbury and beyond.
GB Sales Manager, George Watson at SMARTPLY commented: “We are delighted that we continue to play a part in this iconic festival. As we continue to make commitments to environmental responsibility, it is testament to our forest certification and diligence from trees to trucks which enables Greenpeace, an organisation with uncompromising standards, to regularly use our products.”
