Eavis To Stop Cows Pegging Out

Glastonbury chief Michael Eavis bought 1 million wheat- and potato-starch tent pegs because some of his cows have died or been injured from eating shards of metal pegs on the festival/farm site.

Eavis, who keeps 400 Friesian cows on the Glastonbury site, will urge campers to use the biodegradable pegs rather than leave thousands of metal ones to be broken up by the blades of the forage harvesters.

"When we’re cutting the grass for silage the flails on the machine are chopping up the pegs and leaving shards as sharp as spearheads, which the cows can easily eat with a mouthful of feed," he explained.

This year all ticket holders arriving with a tent will be given a free bag of 10 biodegradable pegs.

Eavis has also found a home for the 10 tons of Wellington boots that have been left at Worthy Farm in recent years, which will all be cleaned and packed off to Africa.

"I’m really pleased about that because I have trailer loads of them and in Africa they’ll be useful in the rainy season and also reduce the chances of people being bitten around the ankle by snakes."

The 3,000 tents that were left at last year’s festival – "because they’re a tenner in Tesco’s and people don’t bother taking them home" – are also being sorted and recycled.

This year a "Love The Farm – Leave No Trace" campaign aims to recycle 50 percent of the rubbish left behind and encourage people to carpool to the festival.

The Somerset farmer/festival organiser has also admitted the demand for tickets for Glastonbury 2008 hasn’t been as strong as in recent years, although the number of applications received is enough to sell out twice.

"I can’t pay what some of the top acts want because I have 20,000 volunteers and charity workers at the festival and it’s important that we raise £2 million for the various causes. We don’t have shareholders to please but I do feel responsible that the charity money is on target," Eavis said.

"I’m not complaining because some artists want a million or two, and good luck to them, because a lot of big acts have done me huge favours by taking less than their usual fees in the past."

Despite various newspaper reports saying who’s booked for June 27-29, Eavis is confirming only a mystery headliner that’s believed to be American.

He says he finalised the deal when he was in Los Angeles to pick up the Pollstar award for Best International Festival, which Glastonbury also won in 2005 and 2006, but he’s not saying who it is. The only other names he’s prepared to give were Jay-Z, The Verve and Kings Of Leon.