How The Olympics is Going Green!
With the kickoff of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada on the 12th of February, here are some fun facts about little things that the competition does to help the earth!
Reducing the Budget: While Beijing’s architectural masterpieces like the Birds Nest stadium and Water Cube were ridiculously cool, China spent over $40 billion on making Beijing ready for the games. Vancouver has only spent around $2 billion, with a lot of it going towards eco-friendly initiatives. Everything they build must have a purpose beyond the games. Instead of building a new stadium, Vancouver is remodeling the 25-year old BC Place Stadium, which will save them millions of dollars. Way to reuse Vancouver!
Transportation: One great step towards reducing the Olympics’ carbon footprint is reducing transportation. With over athletes in the city, the city is opening more lines on the Vancouver Sky Train and has opened the Canada Line rapid transit, which will connect the international airport quickly with downtown. There is also a bunch of hybrid and fuel efficient taxis. All of this will help to reduce traffic congestion with the massive flow of people in the area!
Housing: Every time a city is picked to host the games, one of the main things they have to build is housing for all of the athletes. Vancouver has created the Olympic Village in South East Creek that can hold 10,000 people. It certified with the LEED Gold by the US Green Building Council and half of the condos have green roofs. This means that they will be growing plants on the top of roofs. A set of the condos, called Millennium Water have solar panels on the rooftops to help cut back on energy consumption. After the games are over, the condos will be sustainability-minded apartments. Also, the planning of the Village will have walking paths and easy access to transit services to cut back on driving cars!
New facilities that will have lasting purpose: Of the new buildings being built, all will be converted over to public use after the games. The Hillcrest and Nat Bailey Stadium Park, which are curling rinks for the games, will later be converted to community centers and recreation parks that will include a gymnasium, library, ice hockey rink, curling rinks, and swimming pools. The old Trout Lake community center is being converted to ice rinks for the games and will become a public rink afterwards.
Medals made from recycled materials: The over 1,000 medals awarded at the games this year will be made from recycled circuit boards from old gadgets that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill. They will be made by Teck Resources and the Royal Canadian Mint and will feature Aboriginal art by Corrine Hunt.
Coca –Cola goes Green: One of the main corporate sponsors, Coke, is becoming as eco-friendly as possible during the games. From coolers to uniforms, here are several of the different ways the company is committed to saving the earth:
- The 1,500 coolers will use eKOfresh technology that will nearly eliminate direct greenhouse gases and will help reduce indirect gases.
- Beverages will be delivered from hybrid vehicles from bottling facilities to the venues and once on the venue, only electric carts will be used.
- Recycling bins will be placed throughout all the venues to encourage recycling. They are reaching for nothing less than 100% of all bottles to be recycled.
- They’ve created a PlantBottle, which will be used for water and sparkling beverages.
- All of the staff’s uniforms, literally everything but underwear and shoes, will be made of recycled bottles.
Habitat Island: This island is just off the shores of the southeast Olympic Villages apartments. It’s a tiny island that is about the of a football field. Although man-made, the island is a plant and bird sanctuary that has the hopes of restoring a significant amount of shoreline to the area.
If you want anymore information on Vancouver’s quest for eco-friendly games, visit their website: http://www.vancouver2010.com/sustainability/
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It will take many more years for China to become Canada, as far as the awareness and the level of people’s life.
Once people live comfortably and are not worried about their survival, then China and, literally most of the world’s countries, will be more prone to think about the environment, human rights, etc.
Coca Cola? That is funny… What would they won’t do to make us consume their black gold? They should start selling organic orange juice in the mornings from door to door. That would be a big change in their attitude to the environment. Of course, when they distribute their oj, they can use the electric car from the winter Olympics
Thank you for sharing Lindsay!
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