News & Information
Click here to go back to News listing.
London 2012 Olympic Games Recycling Plans Revealed
January 23, 2012During the London 2012 Olympic Games the capital will be flooded with millions of visitors and all these people will produce huge amounts of waste. Earlier this month the LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) revealed its plans to manage and recycle at least 70% of all the waste produced at Olympic venues.
LOCOG’s corporate sustainability manager Phil Cumming spoke to lesrecycle.com and revealed the ambitious plans to make the London 2012 a zero waste Olympic Games. One of the main features at the games would be the use of compostable packaging on a scale never before seen in the UK.
All packaging used by Olympic venue caterers will have to be compostable and comply with the European standard EN13432, meaning that it will break down and is expected to cost a bit more than regular packaging.
So far everything has been carefully planned and all add up on paper but Mr Cumming said that he does not know for sure that the approach will work because of the scale of the event, and points out that there is little or no guidance for waste producers on the subject.
According to WRAP’s predictions 40% of the catering waste expected to arise at the games will be food and will require composting anyway so using compostable packaging will surely make things a lot easier from a waste management and recycling standpoint.
On an interview to letsrecycle.com Mr Cumming said:
“We have come up with an approach which has not been attempted at this scale. It might not work but we are setting out what we want to do and people will learn from that in the future. Pursuing compostables is potentially controversial but there is a growing concession that it has to be in place. Given that it comes higher than energy recovery in the waste hierarchy it has to play a role.”
Olympic Waste Management
There will be three main waste streams to be collected during the Olympic Games: compostables, dry recycling and residual waste.
Compostables will be dealt with by SITA UK, the official Olympic Games waste contractor. Compostables are likely to account for 35% to 40% of all the waste produced at the Olympic venues. Dry recyclables which will be mainly PET bottles will be recycled by Coca-Cola. More on the Coca-Cola recycling plans for the Olympic Games here: Coke’s Zero Waste Plan for London 2012 Olympic Games.
SITA will also be in charge of residual waste while waste collection will be handled by LOCOG’s cleaning contractors Cleanevent, Servest and LSS. They will collect and transport the waste to waste compound situated at every venue. SITA will then take it away for processing.
SITA’s director Marek Gordon is very optimistic about the outcome of this huge waste management and recycling programme and despite the fact that many subcontractor have not been appointed yet, he expects that the 70% recycling mark will be surpassed.
SHARE THIS:
| Tweet |