Glastonbury to give revellers Sheffield steel cups

More than 200,000 cups made from stainless steel smelted in Sheffield will be handed out to revellers at Glastonbury Festival.

The cups are being tried out as part of organisers' efforts to reduce the amount of waste produced on the site.

Festival-goers will pay a deposit for one of the cups to use throughout the event before returning, donating or keeping it at the end of the weekend.

The cups were developed by Sheffield-based Glogg and made in Birmingham.

Festival organiser Michael Eavis: "For me, the single most important thing was being able to source British stainless steel for the cups from the place where it was invented - Sheffield, and then to take it on to the home of manufacturing - Birmingham.

"Week after week, there's a story in the national press about jobs in the UK steel industry being put at risk.

"There's seemingly no end to the negative slide of this critical industry, and if the jobs, skills and infrastructure are lost they won't be replaced.

"We've worked on this project over the last three years, which will hopefully encourage other UK businesses to think about how they can support our steel industry during these very challenging times."

The cups will be in use at 10 bars across the site, with customers paying a £5 deposit when they buy their first pint.

The festival's green initiatives and sustainability co-ordinator Lucy Smith said that at the end of the festival the deposit would either be refunded or donated to charity, depending on whether a cup is returned or kept.

However, she said she hoped that those revellers who chose to keep their cups would not let them gather dust.

She said: "Don't put it on a shelf and never use it again: the idea is that when they go to another event they take it with them and reuse it."