Why are so Many Tents Left Behind at Music Festivals | S5 E9
Jan Portheine, Co-Founder & CEO of KarTent, joins Earth Care for episode 9 of the Sustainability in the Live Music Industry Series.
KarTent is a sustainable solutions company based out of Amsterdam. Their name means cardboard tent because their original product was exactly that! After witnessing the waste left on music festival campgrounds, founders Jan and Wout wanted to develop a solution. Through their research, they found that 1 in 4 tents were left behind at festivals in the Netherlands alone.
Together, they developed a completely recyclable cardboard tent that was made from strong wood fibers, could survive heavy rain and fit two people. The tents were delivered to music festival sites, then taken back when it was over to use the cardboard again.
KarTent’s philosophy is that cardboard offers a perfect alternative for all kinds of products and is a sustainable alternative. Although they no longer produce tents, they now over 200 different products that are completely recyclable!
In this episode, Jan Portheine, co-founder and CEO of KarTent, discusses the problem of tents left behind at music festivals and the sustainable solution his company offers. The conversation covers the background of KarTent, the environmental impact of discarded tents, the process of turning cardboard into a sturdy tent, the logistics and challenges of KarTent, and the transition to other cardboard products. Jan also provides advice for individuals on reducing their impact at festivals.
Watch their TedX Talk, Waterproof, here
Transcript:
Sarah Christie
Jan Portheine co-founder and CEO of KarTent Thank you so much for sharing your time with Earth Care. I'm thrilled to have you be a part of the Sustainability and the Live Music Industry series. How's it going today?
Jan
Yeah, good, busy but well.
Sarah Christie
So I want to know, I'm curious what your experience with music festivals was like before KarTent was even a thing. You know, were you going to them every summer or was it just a one off?
Jan
Not at all actually, I didn't go to any festivals before KarTent
Sarah Christie
Oh my gosh, but you have a background in architecture?
Jan
Yeah, correct.
Sarah Christie
Okay, so then how did this initial conversation for KarTent become a thing?
Jan
Okay, well when I graduated I graduated on a cardboard beach house for the government which I was designing and sort of manufacturing with a lot of cardboard companies and factories I visited and then I wanted to make it a commercial thing so I went to a startup incubator and there I met Wout, my other co-founder who was doing a research on tents being left behind at festivals and so that was where the idea was born actually.
Sarah Christie
Wow. So I'm going to skip ahead then because you just said your partner was doing research on tents left behind at music festivals. Now, I was doing some research myself before this interview and this was mind blowing because I think when you think about the waste at a festival, you're thinking cups, plastic bottles. But I read, I got to pull up the fact now, the largest source of waste at music festivals is tents. Is that true?
Jan
Yeah, I think it still is. I do must say I started eight years ago and at that point it was. I don't know if it's still at this time. I could imagine that it could also be chairs or armatures at this point. But yeah, tents is a large thing. Yeah.
Sarah Christie
Why do you think that is?
Jan
I think it has to do with to the market. The production of tents is really cheap. It's being done in China on a multiple mass quantities and it's offered at a really cheap price. A lot of people fly, move and transport themselves a longer distance to festivals and therefore not being able to or willing to take back their tent with them in the transport. And also because the tents get damaged, the bad weather, friends who demolish them forever or for instance. So numbers of facts and that's why I think people leave them behind. So it's a combination of the market and it's a combination of the people using it.
Sarah Christie
This might sound like a silly question, but for all of these tents that are left behind at a festival, do you know what happens to them? Like is there any way to recycle them? Is there any way to recycle or are they just getting discarded?
Jan
Yeah, they're discarded. It's a really low quality plastic, which is not recyclable and can only be burned. And actually, it needs extra fuel to be to be burned. So it's not even an electricity thing. Yeah, so it's, yeah, that's the main problem, actually. Yeah.
Sarah Christie
Whoa, that's terrible to hear. Take your tents home with you if you're going to a music festival. Well, this is the great thing about KarTent you know? You have sustainable solutions. Now I've seen, you know, I've seen compostable tents. You know, a lot of festivals are introducing glamping where you can go stay in an RV so you don't have to buy a tent. What was it about cardboard for you?
Jan
Well, I like the material and I think it's, you know, what I hoped is that because of the low footprint, we could really solve a problem for it. But we actually, instead of getting people on board who were ecological, what we thought at the beginning, we actually got a lot of lazy people as customer base. You know, and maybe skip back a bit. You know, if you buy a tent and you reuse it more than 20 times, You're the best. That's what you should do. You know, if you buy a high quality tent and can do that. But like for a lot of people who fly into a festival, for instance, to see it or something, and they have to fly over, they can't bring their tent with them or back. So they could rent an option, or they can buy a cheap tent at locally. And that's where the biggest problem comes from.
Sarah Christie
And so the idea with KarTent is that even if you leave it, it can be recycled. Is that correct?
Jan
Yeah, so what we did in the beginning, yeah, so in the beginning of the three years, we took the tents to the festival, set them up, people came, people left them behind, we collected them again, we brought them to the paper recycling. And at a certain point, we even took the tents back and started cutting new products from the old tents. So you should think about bins, chairs, tables and stuff again for the other events. And we did this up all the way until Corona came and then we stopped the event business actually.
Sarah Christie
Now walk me through the process of what's involved in turning cardboard into a sturdy tent because when I think back to like box forts that I would have made as a kid, you know, they were definitely not sturdy to withstand going camping. So what is involved in this process?
Jan
Well, it's just a normal cardboard anybody could buy or see. It's a, it's non-coated. So it's just really thick. It's a seven millimeters corrugated cardboard. I would say if you buy big products shipped in big boxes, it would be the same type of cardboard actually. The thing is it would, it just takes a long time for the water to get through. And that's actually basically our trick. So we had the option to go for a thinner cardboard and coat it. So it would be waterproof, or we could go for an option, which did. Yeah, I'd say dissolves in a matter of time. So we went for the last option.
Sarah Christie
That was going to be my next question because I've been at many festivals where it rains. So what would happen to it if a rainstorm hit the festival?
Jan
Yeah, so we did have a few rainstorms which didn't go really well. We did have a lot which did, of course. So let's say the tent is made for, let's say up to 98% of all weather types for the duration of a festival. And I must say in eight years' time, the weather has changed quite a bit. So instead of having lots of rain, it's becoming a lot of rain on one moment on which the tent is not really built for. We had, of course, we had the option to make the tent being able durable for that weather type as well but it would be unaffordable
So it's a balance point.
Sarah Christie
If you buy a cheap tent, it's likely going to have a hole in it anyway that can't withstand that kind of extreme rain. Now, so if a customer was buying it, would they just come in a, you know, almost like an IKEA package is what I'm picturing, where it comes out with instructions and they build the box on site? Is that what it is?
Jan
When you, we sell the tents in larger quantities to the festival organization who sells it on to the festival goer. And once the festival goer arrives, we already have the tent set up for them. The thing is they're really large, so the transport is really expensive if you do it per unit. It's also a bit why the business model was really hard because we needed the festival organization to be able to deliver our service. So what we would rather have is that, like you're saying, we could ship it over like an IKEA package and people would take it to themselves. But the size of the tent being packed is the same size as a door.
Sarah Christie
Right. Yeah, you can't really get that on a plane if you're flying to a festival. Now, once these were in motion and being used at festivals, what was it like for you and your team to see them in action?
Jan
Well, it was really cool. We, we did use at the first year, we used a lot of them as a guinea pig. So we changed and developed the tents during the festivals as well. So on one festivals, I remember really well, we had around 20 different types of doors, for people to test. I slept in one of them as well. And then in the morning I did as if I booked the tent as well. And I tried to gather, opinions from people about their door, how they felt about it.
And so one big change we had in the beginning, the tent was a triangle. And people said like it feels quite small inside. So that's why we made it a pentagon shape. Another thing is we did, we had doors on both sides, which we thought was smart, but people thought it was more like a tunnel. So then we removed one door. So that's the fun thing about cardboard as well. You can really change the design quite easily.
Sarah Christie
Absolutely. Now, I'm thinking, you know, to some music festivals that I've been and I'll speak to the weather here. I don't know how different it is for where you are, but it is muggy and humid and sticky. And so some of the festivals we have around here, there aren't any trees. So in your tent, it's just like you're cooking. It's just so sweaty and sticky. What was it like in the cardboard tent?
Jan
Well, it gets the same heat, I would say as a normal tent, but it just takes longer. So it takes longer to heat up and it takes longer to cool down because of the insulated layer. That's actually more of the difference. So in the morning you could sleep longer and then the night it would be warmer, longer.
Sarah Christie
That in and of itself is a win already. Now you mentioned once the pandemic hit, you transitioned to other products away from festivals. So what other products are you making now?
Jan
So we've got a web shop with around 300 different products ranging from toys, lamps, chairs, desks, you name it. You should look on the website. And we do a lot of custom work for companies like fair stands, big opening arches, fake cars, fake people, a lot of temporary stuff as well. And yeah, like what you're saying, due to the pandemic, we moved over. So.
It also started because of the tents. We took the tents back, we were making new products from them, and then the pandemic hit, so we already had the production for making products, and we switched over to new cardboard, which reduced the amount of returns, and also really rose the quality of all the products.
Sarah Christie
Wow, well, now that you have spent time at festivals, and I'm sure you've seen, you've been on the ground, do you have any advice for audience members that are going to festivals, how they can, on an individual level, reduce their impact?
Jan
Well, the biggest impact actually from events is the transport or the way to get there. So if you can do share cars, go with the public transport, that's what's going to make the most difference. And when you're talking about tents, I would really recommend buying your own tent, but buy a good one, which you can reuse.
Sarah Christie
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for sharing your time with Earth Care. It's been such a pleasure talking to you and learning about KarTent
Jan
Thank you.
FINISHED.
