Vango, the UK’s leading camping and outdoor equipment brand and Europe’s largest conservation charity has launched a recycled plastic camping collection, including eco-friendly tents and sleeping bags.
Made from a new Sentinel Eco™ fabric incorporating recycled PET plastic bottles, salvaged from waterways, streets and landfill, the tents use a minimum of 69 plastic bottles for the three sleeper Devon tent, through to 302 plastic bottles for the six sleeper Antrim. In the first year of release, it is projected that the National Trust camping collection will repurpose almost 295,000 PET plastic bottles.
The sleeping bags in the National Trust collection feature a 100% recycled filling made from used plastic bottles that are reprocessed and turned into a polyester fill.
Rarely seen in the industry, the tents and sleeping bag are patterned with a striking oak leaf repeat print. Carved into the first built property the charity took into its care in 1896, Alfriston Clergy in East Sussex, the oak leaf continues to be instantly recognisable, and an obvious choice for the collection.
The collaboration with the National Trust celebrates the organisations’ shared passion for enjoying and caring for the great outdoors. Through sales of the National Trust camping collection, Vango will contribute a minimum of £10,000 to the National Trust, to help fund conservation projects in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so that future generations can enjoy the places, we as a nation, love to experience.
Rob Birrell, Vango’s Marketing Director said, “We are very excited to collaborate with the National Trust. This new collection introduces the opportunity for our sustainability conscious campers to use great kit which offers the trusted Vango performance whilst recycling some of the plastic bottle waste we see impacting our planet.
The outdoors is vital, not just for our enjoyment, but to the future of our planet. That’s why this collaboration with the National Trust seemed fitting, to invest the time and effort into researching new ways of tent fabric construction aligned with the need for all of us to be more environmentally conscious.”
Clare Brown Head of Brand Licensing and Retailer Development for the National Trust commented, “We are delighted to have collaborated with Vango on this eco-friendly collection. We know that the more connected people feel with nature the more likely they are to care for it. Camping is probably the closest anyone can get to nature, therefore this collaboration was an obvious one for us.
Alongside offering supporters the chance to buy these tents for their own adventures, we are also setting up pre-pitch camping options in some of our National Trust tent campsites. These include Wasdale in the Lake District, Dolaucothi in Wales – the location of the only gold mine in the Trust’s care and Highertown Farm in Cornwall.”
Vango’s’ National Trust camping collection will be exclusively available from Cotswold Outdoor outlets and online via the National Trust (nationaltrust.org.uk/shop), Cotswold Outdoor (cotswoldoutdoor.com) and Vango (vango.co.uk), from April.
