Wellies are for life, not just for Glastonbury

(Image: Twak) 

Wellies have become as much a part of festival culture as the music, beer and straw hats.

And, just like festival tents, they tend to get left behind in the muddy field at the end of the weekend, forgotten, sodden and anonymous.

So one guy decided to collect them up and do something good with them.

Steffan Lemke-Elms set up Festival Reboot, a company that collects, cleans and reuses these unwanted wellington boots. He is now the proud owner of 4000 dirty wellies from last year's Glastonbury. And he is slowly but surely working his way through this dirty pile.

(Images: Steffan Lemke-Elms)

So what happens to this forgotten footwear? Once cleaned, the tops get chopped off leaving a clog like shoe at the bottom and a strip of welly material.

The rubbery material gets upcycled in either a beer holder, a notebook or a bracelet.. Steffan sells these in order to raise money to send the bottom part (the cleaned, paired Welly Clogs) out to the slums in Nairobi and Nakuru in Kenya.

These shoes are given to farm workers, school children and anyone else who needs some durable, safe footwear.

The idea is so simple and utterly brilliant. Made even more impressive by the fact that Steffan started Festival Reboot when he was just 20.

Check out the upcycled products you can buy here. And if you're interested in helping Steffan out at his welly cleaning week at the Glastonbury festival site (Worthy Farm) between the 28th August and 1st September then get in touch with Steffan on info@festivalreboot.co.uk. He has 4000 boots to get through so he needs all the help he can muster.

We take our straw hats off to you Steffan, this is a welly, welly good project.

SHARE THIS