'Carbon-neutral' T in the Park festival organisers dumped thousands of tents in landfill

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Despite claiming to be the world's biggest carbon-neutral festival, fewer than 100 unwanted tents were recycled after the three-day event at Balado, Kinross-shire, earlier this month.

Tents cost as little as £20 and many revellers deserted theirs after the festival finished.

Massive party: T in the Park music festival near Kinross in Scotland

Clean-up: Thousands of tents were left in the rolling countryside of Kinross

Organisers blamed the shocking levels of waste on Scotland's 'disposable culture'.

Ellen Purves, of DF Concerts, last night defended the company's decision to send all but a few of the unwanted tents to landfill.

She said: 'We cannot rescue all the tents that were left but we are trying to educate people to dispose of them responsibly. It is a disposable culture we live in.

'Unfortunately, most of the tents left behind are covered in graffiti, soiled and damaged. They get thrown out as we don't have the manpower to restore them.'

Neil Lovelock, of Scottish Community Recycling Network, said T in the Park needed to do more to cut waste.

He added: 'Tents appear in supermarkets for not much more than the cost of a case of lager but should not be seen as a one-off purchase.'

Ochil and South Perthshire Labour MP Gordon Banks has raised his recycling concerns with the festival organisers.

He said: 'I don't believe that festival-goers leave their tents behind in the expectation that they will be recycled.'