Laois charities salvage chairs, tables and tents at Electric Picnic campsites

As weary Electric Picnic campers slowly make their way home on Monday, cleanup efforts are just beginning. 

Over 80,000 picnickers attended this year's festival, they must vacate the campsites by 4pm. At 6pm, heavy machinery will be used on the site to clear the abandoned rubbish. This waste will all go straight to a landfill.

Festival organisers allow local charities the chance to salvage what they can before the rubbish is cleared.

Pictured: Rubbish left strewn at the Jimi Hendrix campsite on Monday

PATH will be collecting sleeping bags, tents and non perishable foods.

"We are also hoping to collect empty cans and bottles too," a spokesperson told the Leinster Express / Laois Live.

"We will have a date for collection of sleeping bags to be washed soon," they said.

Laois SPCA will attempt to salvage blankets for pets, and bottles and cans for the re-turn sites.

In the main arena, there were workers gathering litter throughout the weekend, keeping the arena relatively clear.

There were concerns following last year's Electric Picnic when the Leinster Express / Laois Live photographed a herd of sheep grazing on the festival site two weeks after the festival, surrounded by left over litter from the festival.

Pictured: Rubbish abandoned on the Samuel Beckett campsite on Monday morning

"We have been collecting empty cans all weekend to return them, there are loads of things left like camping chairs, tables, sleeping mats that we will use for cat trapping, blankets and clothes that we can sell in the charity shop," she said.

"Festival organisers are big on safety, so we have all been wearing high visibility vests and are regularly checked on. We had a safety briefing ahead of the heavy machinery that was due on site by 6pm, to know what is going on and how to navigate it all," the charity chairperson explained.

"We had seven volunteers onsite from 8am, and more coming in after 3pm. Along with gathering things, we had to take our air hub apart, it was our first time to run one this year and we were delighted to receive a donation of €3,000."

The charity explained that having seen the way that the charity salvages are carried out, they hope to be more prepared next year.

"We are putting in a plan for next year's salvage, we hope to have a lot more bodies. We received confirmation of the actual operation on Sunday, it was delayed as we were waiting for Gardaí to confirm the travel curfews. Hopefully we will get more notice next year so we can have more volunteers on site," Ms Ryan said.

"We are going to have an Electric Picnic bonanza sale in a community hall next August, where we will sell all of the tents, air mattresses, sleeping mats and more that we have collected. We hope to be better set up," she said.

"We also gathered a pile of packets of baby wipes, which is a great help in the line of work we do! It has all been brilliant, and we have learned a lot to help us prepare for next year," the chairperson finished.

Managing Director of Festival Republic, Mr Melvin Benn, told the Leinster Express / Laois Live on Sunday that he hoped people would bring their rubbish home.

Pictured: Electric Picnic campsites left in ruin on Monday, September 1

"The reality is that a lot of people don’t. I can talk until I am blue in the face to say that they should do it but they take their own responsibility and they choose to leave it," Mr Benn explained.

"We will have some salvagers to take some away, but the rest will go to waste, and that will be disappointing, but there is a limit to what I can do. I can’t go around and pack everybody’s bag for them. I am an 'in loco parent' to them in some respects but there is a limit,” he finished.