Outdoors

Glad Tent doubles as a giant garbage bag

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The Glad Company recently experimented with a combination tent and garbage bag, known as the Glad Tent
The Glad Company recently experimented with a combination tent and garbage bag, known as the Glad Tent
The one-person tent is made from Glad ForceFlex garbage bags

Outdoor music festivals are notorious for a lot of things, one of the biggest being the amount of garbage left behind by the concert-goers. In an effort to get music fans to clean up after themselves, while also providing them with half-decent temporary shelter, the Glad Company recently experimented with a combination tent/big garbage bag, known as the Glad Tent.

The tent, and the whole project in which it was tested, was created for Glad by the Miami-based Alma advertising agency. “For years, Glad has been a leader in innovative green solutions and focusing on two of the three R’s: Reduce (by utilizing less plastic intheir bags) and Recycle (by supporting recycling programs and creating specialized products),” Alma’s Daniella Biffi told us. “But we had to figure out how to apply that last R (Reuse) to Glad’s trash bags. So the Glad Tent concept was born.”

The one-person tent is made from Glad ForceFlex garbage bags. A number of the tents were given to attendees who were camping at this year’s SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas, on the condition that they use the bags to pack up their trash when they leave. According to Biffi, the response was “overwhelmingly positive.”

The one-person tent is made from Glad ForceFlex garbage bags

It’s definitely a clever, intriguing idea, although it does raise a few questions ... Wouldn’t the people most likely to care about eliminating litter already clean up after themselves anyway? How many people would just sleep in the tent because it’s cheaper than buying a reusable one, then leave it as yet another piece of garbage? And how humid does it get inside one of those things?

In any case, a representative from Glad told us that there are no immediate plans to produce the tents commercially.

The Glad Tent can be seen in use in Alma’s video below.

Via: Fast Company

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15 comments
Mindbreaker
I'd be concerned about the possibility of suffocation.
Mike DuBois
Only if it was fitted over your head !
badman400
Shame people aren't responsible enough to police their area without having to be reminded or bribed. When I was growing up we were taught by our parents to leave a campsite as clean or cleaner than we found it. Still a great innovative idea.
Paul Smith
Why do people throw their trash on the ground to begin with? Don't they think far enough ahead and bring a grocery store bags to use as a trash can? While Jeeping, I use a light canvas bag lined with a plastic bag. It is attached to my rear mounted spare tire on the back of my jeep.
Kwazai
if it were available clear-it'd work great as a greenhouse...
Amanda Matthews
"Why do people throw their trash on the ground to begin with?" Because they have been taught that someone else will clean it up for them, so they don't have to. And/or the trash cans around become full and people aren't willing to carry the trash with them.
In countries where people are taught that they have to clean up after themselves, it's not as much of a problem. But in the US, Mom (or the housekeeper for some families) or the janitor always picks up after us, so why bother doing it ourselves? Why bother carrying that dirty trash (which we are taught somehow magically becomes disgusting a few minutes after we are done with it) with us when someone else can clean it up? Why care about the environment in the long term when walking over to the trash can or carrying trash with me inconveniences me in the short term?
I think this tent is a great idea - a single person can't produce enough trash to fill that up themselves, so other people around them would be able to toss their trash in too. Even if people were leaving them as another piece of trash, others could throw trash in. It's a shame they don't plan to produce them commercially, but it looks like it would be simple to make some, if one can find trash bags big enough...
Gregg DesElms
This feels like a solution, looking for a problem.
Several very large trash bags will fold-up and fit into a back pocket, or the pocket of a backpack. Truth is, based on the amount of trash people were putting into the tent-turned-trash-bag, one good-sized yard-waste-type trash back would be all that one would need to carry around with oneself, plus one's regular tent (which would be no larger than, and likely smaller than, the Glad Tent when carried to the campsite); and said regular tent could be used over, and over, and over, and over.
Then there's the Glad Tent's (lack of) breathability... air flow (or lack thereof) through it.
Yeah... no... I don't THINK so. Couldn't be less interested.
That said, if it'll get young folks to clean-up after themselves, then what the heck.
Rick Squier
This is a cool concept. It would be a great temp/emergency shelter for a car and a concert etc. If they could make it with a flap to cover the entrance and some sort of "gills" for ventilation and still keep it cheap enough to use as a trash bag/throw a way solution would make it complete. I hope they do it! One upgrade I could think of would be to use TYVEX house wrap as the tent material. Again it would need a fly cover for the front and ventilation but it would be even stronger and have some insulative properties as well, and maybe still cheap enough to throw away after one use? Maybe. Throw in one of those mylar emergency blankets to the package and you have a real solution that would market well!
Dennis Siple
Brilliant idea. I agree, the size of the bag would encourage others to fill up the bag with their trash as well. Festival organizers would have a lot less problem cleaning up afterward. They could make them in a second color so that only recyclables would be used in it…
Ralf Biernacki
I agree with Kwazai---this would be really cool if it could be made clear. Just think about camping in wilderness in a transparent tent.