Green kit starts with what you already own

The most sustainable piece of camping gear is the one you already have in the loft. Before you spend a penny on anything new, empty the cupboard, lay everything out on the living room floor and ask three questions: does it still work, can it be repaired, and will I actually use it this season? Most of us own a perfectly serviceable stove, a set of pegs and a sleeping bag that just needs a wash and a good airing.

Eco-friendly camping has picked up a reputation for being expensive, and that is largely nonsense. The genuinely greener choices — buying second-hand, refilling instead of replacing, carrying soap instead of sachets — tend to be the cheaper ones. What costs money is the throwaway habit: the £20 tent bought in a panic the day before a festival, the pack of disposable batteries, the bag of wet wipes. Swap those habits and your kit gets kinder to the planet and lighter on your wallet at the same time.

Buying a second-hand tent that will actually last

Abandoned tents are the dirty secret of the British festival season, and the fix starts before you arrive. A decent second-hand tent costs roughly half of a new one and keeps usable fabric out of landfill, but you need to inspect it properly rather than trusting a photo taken in good light.

• Check the seams and tape: run a thumb along the taped seams inside the flysheet. If the tape is lifting or peeling, the tent will leak, though it can often be resealed at home with seam sealer for a few pounds.
• Smell the fabric: a musty, sour smell means damp storage and likely mildew. Small spots can be cleaned; widespread black staining means walk away.
• Test the zips and poles: zip every door and check the teeth align. Feed the poles through and look for splits, kinks or a snapped shock cord, which is cheap to replace but tedious to fix in a field.
• Ask about the hydrostatic head: for UK use, look for a flysheet rating of at least 2,000mm, ideally 3,000mm, and a bathtub groundsheet with taped corners.
• Insist on a footprint or make one: a cheap cut of tarpaulin or an old groundsheet under the tent will roughly double its life.

Check the age, too. Polyester and nylon both degrade in UV light, so a tent that has spent five summers pitched in full sun will be weaker than its price suggests.

Gas, stoves and the refill habit

Single-use gas cartridges are the least green thing in most campers' bags. They are hard to recycle, often punctured and binned, and you pay a premium for the tin itself every time. If your stove takes a refillable canister, find a local stockist that refills rather than swaps — a refill typically costs well under half the price of a new cylinder and gives you the same gas.

If you are buying your first stove, a refillable multi-fuel or liquid-fuel model pays for itself over a few seasons. For lighter trips, a simple alcohol burner or a twig stove uses fuel you can buy in any hardware shop and leaves nothing behind. Two practical notes: never refill a cartridge not designed for it, and check the rules at your campsite or festival, as open fires and some stoves are banned on dry ground.

Plastic-free toiletries for campsites and festivals

The wash bag is where plastic quietly piles up. A few swaps sort it out, and most of them save space as well as waste.

• Solid shampoo and soap bars in a small tin — no leaks, no liquid limits, no bottle to bin.
• A flannel and a small bottle of water instead of wet wipes, which do not break down and clog campsite drains.
• Refill your own bottles at a zero-waste shop before you go: sunscreen, insect repellent, hand sanitiser and toothpaste tablets all travel well.
• A bamboo or replaceable-head toothbrush and a bar of deodorant rather than an aerosol.
• A small mesh bag for any rubbish you generate, so nothing blows across the field at 2am.

Buy the refills in the largest size you can carry and decant at home. It is cheaper per gram and uses a fraction of the packaging.

Lighting your evening without disposable batteries

Long summer evenings mean you need less light than you think, but a head torch and a lantern still earn their place. Choose USB-rechargeable models and charge them from a power bank that you topped up at home. If your torch takes standard batteries, buy a set of rechargeable ones and a small charger — after about five uses they are cheaper than disposables, and they will not leak in your bag.

For a warmer camp, a solar lantern left out during the day costs nothing to run. Avoid glow sticks and disposable fairy lights, and if you want string lights, look for a rechargeable set you can use year after year.

Repair, borrow and buy at the right time

Learn two repairs and you will keep gear alive for years: patching fabric with a peel-and-stick patch, and sealing a leaking seam. A tiny repair kit — patches, a spare guy line, two pegs, a pole splint and a needle and thread — weighs almost nothing and has saved many a trip.

Beyond repairs, the cheapest green kit is borrowed kit. Campsite and festival forums, local outdoor clubs and friends all swap tents, cool boxes and camping stoves. When you do buy, buy in the autumn sales at the end of the season, when quality gear drops to second-hand prices. Buy once, look after it, and take it home with you. That is the whole trick.