Waste Management at Vancouver 2010 Olympics

According to a recent article from PricewaterhouseCoopers, VANOC has been the first organizing committee in the history of the Olympic Games to integrate a sustainability management and reporting system into its business plan. It was based on international standards, such as AccountAbility’s AA1000 series, which are “principles-based standards for helping organizations become more accountable, responsible and sustainable.”

Given VANOC’s sustainability definition of “managing the social, economic and environmental impacts and opportunities of [the] Games to produce lasting benefits, locally and globally,” they built sustainability into the games in 12 key areas. You can read the details here.

I wanted to take a closer look at the waste management side of things, and in particular, see what I could find on packaging. The VANOC 2008 to 2009 Sustainability Report states that overall, VANOC managed to divert 67% of their waste by reusing, recycling or composting it – that’s 734.2 metric tonnes of their total solid waste that they were successful in diverting from landfills during this time period. Their target for the actual game period of January 1 to March 31, 2010 was to divert a minimum of 85 percent of their total waste generated from all game operations. It’ll be interesting to see the results once the 2010 Sustainability Report is released.

In adopting Vancouver’s Zero Waste Challenge Strategy, VANOC has had to strategically work with sponsors, product suppliers, contractors and staff in the areas of source reduction, reuse, recycling, waste energy, landfill disposal, and education and communication.

For example, VANOC worked with one of their sponsors, The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), on their packaging. HBC sponsored furniture and linens for the athletes’ village. VANOC says that the waste creation from polystyrene (Styrofoam) packaging  would have been high. In addition, there would have been the generation of more traffic, more costs for waste disposal and the creation of greenhouse gas emissions through removal of non-recyclables. So HBC turned around and worked with its suppliers to find alternatives that would be acceptable to VANOC’s waste management policy, such as easily compactable and recyclable cardboard packaging and plastic films. In addition, HBC provided worker uniforms in bulk packaging.

The Hudson’s Bay Company was not the only sponsor who took the challenge seriously. Coke, for example, showcased its commitment to the Zero Waste Challenge and sustainable packaging by presenting its new, fully recyclable “PlantBottle”, using only 100 percent compostable beverage cups and lids, and collecting all PET containers for a 95 percent diversion of waste from landfills. Apparently, the uniforms worn by the Coke reps were made out of recycled PET bottles.

More links of interest:

Vancouver 2010 Sustainability Overview

12 Ways VANOC Built Sustainability into the Games

VANCOV 2008-2009 Sustainability Report
See page 54 for Waste Reduction details

Snapshot of VANOC 2008-2009 Sustainability Report
See page 14 for Environmental Stewardship and Impact Reduction Scorecard

VANOC announces additional “Sustainability Star” winners

Coke’s Zero Waste Carbon Neutral Sponsorship

Green is the New Red for zero-waste, carbon neutral sponsor

The Olympic Gold Rush – it’s Only Just Begun