A message from the event organisers of @lostparadise.

Hi Jesse, hope you are well and had a good New Year at Lost Paradise. I’m one of the event partners and sadly apologise for the mess of which the campers leave it. We’re continually working to find solutions to reduce the state of which the event site is left in.

We spend hundreds of hours post the event to clean every piece of rubbish, including cigarette butts across the land and water. Our views to keep our land and waters clean match yours.

Below is a statement that we released, I hope this brings some comfort.

“Lost Paradise has always been a forward-thinking event, committed to leaving zero trace on our festival site, and ensuring the Glenworth Valley remains as pristine and perfect as we found it. The team that produce Lost Paradise are dedicated to ensuring that the grounds are returned to the family of horses that occupy the grounds regardless of time or effort.

Massive cleanup crews are working long hours to ensure that we leave absolutely no trace on the Glenworth Valley site, as we’ve done every year since our inception in 2014.

In 2017, we also introduced an Eco Bond on every ticket sold. This $10 fee is refunded if a guest collects and hand in 1 bag of recycling and 1 bag of general waste at the event. If not, it is forfeited and goes towards the cleanup effort, and for future protection and preservation of our festival site. Over 22,000 bags where handed out on entry at the start of the festival.

For the last two years, we’ve also partnered with Green Connect, to further reduce our impact on the environment. Green Connect are a social enterprise that works to keep waste out of landfill, and champions the employment of young people and former refuges. While we don’t yet have figures for this year’s event, last year we kept 10.6 tonnes of organic material out of landfill, and put it to work growing seasonal, organic food with Green Connect.

In the end however, regardless of all the efforts we put in place to minimize the impact we put on the Glenworth Valley festival site, we can’t do this alone – we rely on our guests and everyone involved to do their part for the environment and take whatever they have brought with them away again, and use one of the many bins and Eco Stations provided on site. Unfortunately not everyone helps with this effort and considerable quantities of camping equipment and trash has again been left behind. We have a very large contingent of cleaners, both during the festival and post, with dedicated Popran Creek teams, who hit the grounds from the moment the campgrounds were vacated.

In the case of usable camping supplies left at Lost Paradise, we donate these to charitable organisations and partner with the Hawksberry Helpers, who can put them to good use. Regarding trash and recyclable materials left on site our crews will be working day and night to ensure all traces are removed.”

Thank You
Pete Haselhurst

My reply

Dear Peter . Some suggestions for you . Don’t wait till the end of the last day to clean up . Have promoters and artists verbally sending out the message to clean up on stage . Educate people . Have large skip bins everywhere instead of invisible fenced areas . Clean up during the festival . You say you pay for returned rubbish but no staff were visible in camp sites at all for 4 days . And no staff at you so called dumping areas . How about don’t let any in to site after a half hour clean up each morning . How about putting a barrier along creeks to stop rubbish blowing into the creeks for 4 days . We witnessed people throwing tents into the creeks . We pulled them out . Twice a day for 4 days the outgoing tide carried the rubbish away . Don’t be so greedy and and spend more money on staff and reward volunteers with free passes etc . Create a culture of environmental awareness . You could learn a lot from other festivals such as Woodford folk festival . Take responsibility don’t pass the buck and blame the patrons . Yes they are pigs but you are attracting pigs to your festival . Other festivals are different . The people are speaking ! Listen to them and make changes .
Kind regards Jesse McNair

Please share ! Paradise was lost ! Lost paradise festival aftermath ! The festival organisers and patrons need a massive wake up call . Hardly a bin in sight! For 4 days campers trashed their own camp sites living in squaller but who cares as long as they partied hard that’s all that matters to the younger generation . Everything that was bought for the festival was bought to be trashed and left behind . #throwawaysociety . This is a disgrace . This festival site is surrounded by pristine National Park and a lot of this rubbish was blowing into the tidal creek that flows into the #hawksburyriver and into our beautiful #pacificocean . I’m sure they are all driving back to mum and dads house where’s she cleans up after them #newyearsday#lostparadise #notinmybackyard @take3forthesea maybe you guys should school these people for next year . What ever happened to camping where you take everything with you and leave nothing but footprints . 🎥 @enlightenphoto on instagram . Wide screen version also posted on my page