VOLUNTEERS spent hours clearing away “house-sized” piles of rubbish left behind at the Boardmasters festival in Watergate Bay, writes SWNS’s Freddie Noble.

One man said he estimated 70 percent of guests had left behind their equipment, including brand new tents, chairs and mattresses, some still packed in boxes.

Photos show mountains of tents and garbage left behind by some of the 60,000 festival-goers.

Jay McGillan, 19, worked with Oxfam at the festival and said he was “shocked” to see how much rubbish was left behind.

After the festival ended, Jay spent four hours collecting tents, pumps, mattresses and chairs – all in brand new condition.

Jay said he believed about 70 percent of festival-goers left trash behind and that it looked like a “landfill.”

Jay, from Bath in Somerset, who works for a design company, said: “The piles were as high as houses, but the scale of the rubbish was just unbelievable.”

“There was a big construction team with a huge crane and they worked on it all night.

“There were containers the size of shipping containers all over the site, which were constantly being filled by excavators.”

Jay said he was “shocked” as many of the items left behind looked brand new, so he took them home to recycle the material.

He said: “I stuffed them in my car and drove there and back twice to get as much material as possible.

“The funny thing was, I was hoping to find leftovers, but I found so many camping chairs still in their bags and beds that looked brand new.

“The things were just there, like new, and I felt guilty leaving them there and thought I could take some of them home with me.

“It was a really strange feeling to witness because Boardmasters uses the British coastline as a selling point for the festival.”