Green-Lympics
By Karina | February 24, 2010
Hey, y’all, it’s Olympics time! Now, I have to confess that I, ahem, haven’t been watching the Olympics. And that’s kind of a bummer, because 1. I love Canada, and I’m excited they are hosting, and 2. I really love the Olympics. They’re fun, I love the back-stories, I love the athleticism, I love seeing people from other countries, and also, it’s a great block of TV-time where I can get some seriously overdue xmas knitting taken care of. HOWEVER, we still haven’t wired up the TV room, and now there’s a big tree growing in front of the dish, so….
But! there’s some interesting Olympics news that I thought y’all would like to hear about - for one, the olympic medals are made from recycled electronic waste!
The manufacturer is local-to-Vancouver Teck, and they say:
Historically, metal for the medals has been sourced only from mineral deposits that are mined from the earth and refined for commercial use. Teck has created a recycling process to recover metal from end-of-life electronics (e-waste) such as TVs, computers and keyboards. This process provides a practical solution to the challenge of reducing the amount of e-waste material destined for landfills and is part of the company’s pursuit of sustainability—a core value that drives its approach to business.
Metal can be sourced from many manufactured metal products, including household appliances, electronics or cables. Teck’s process involves recovering metals contained in cathode ray tube glass, computer parts and circuit boards through smelting. The process involves shredding, separating, and heating of the various electronic components to recover a variety of metals.
The gold, silver and copper used in the medals was recovered from end-of-life electronics circuit boards collected and processed at Trail and the Umicore facilities in Belgium which was then combined with the metal from other sources for the medal production.
As they say over at Planet Green:
A total of 2.05 kg of gold, 1,950 kg of silver, and 903 kg of copper were used, which in the end means just a small percentage of recycled material in each medal, but the mining of gold and other minerals is often quite destructive, so it’s a good first step—and as any Olympic athlete would probably tell you, you’ve gotta start somewhere!
So neat! Of course the Olympics are inherently very unsustainable - new stadiums are built, people travel from around the world and overload a local community for a few weeks, snow has to be trucked in because of unpredictable weather, and OH MY GOODNESS the energy use. So it’s important that every little big of sustainable action is picked up and worked on. So just as these Vancouver Olympics are putting recycled e-waste to good use, they are also focused on many different types of sustainable actions. Vancouver has put up a sustainability page that goes from details on how the venues are more sustainable to tracking how much energy is used throughout the games (in real time!) to calculating a carbon footprint for the Olympic games! There is even an initiative with Canadian groups The David Suzuki Foundation and Climate Project Canada to start athlete driven Play it Cool, which relies on athletes to spread the word:
Play It Cool members spread the word of climate change solutions to Canadians by linking up with Al Gore-trained presenters of The Climate Project Canada. Athletes bring these presentations to life by sharing their compelling stories of the visible effects of climate change and what they are doing to help solve the climate crisis.
and also to walk the talk:
Athletes … reduce their carbon footprint caused by pollution from flying, driving, and the heating and cooling of buildings. Athletes then work toward becoming ‘carbon neutral’ by offsetting the carbon emissions from their travel. They do this by investing in clean energy projects like solar installations or wind farms from Planetair.ca after The Climate Project Canada calculates their sports-related footprint.
Athlete members pay a discounted rate of USD $33/tonne for their offsets from Planetair.ca. The average athlete emits 7 tonnes per year, which costs an average of USD $245 to offset with Gold Standard carbon offsets. Athletes are encouraged to seek sponsors to help them go carbon neutral.
There’s a good newspaper article about this here, with an abbreviated checklist from the athlete’s rule book.
So as much as the Olympics are inherently unsustainable, there’s a lot of education and mitigation going on. I would argue that the spectacle that brings over 80 countries together, moves the USA away from drama-based prime time navel gazing television for a short while, and also teaches the world a little more about sustainability is a pretty great, and I’m glad the sustainability of the games is increasing every time they are held.
Are you watching the Olympics? Any insights as to their (non)sustainability or other inherent properties?
Related posts:
- Truly Impressive Electronics Recycling Program!
- Carbon Neutral Wine
- The Bible Goes Green!
- Easy Peasy Tip: Scrutinize One Thing
- Green Skiing
- Keeping Ice Cream Consumption Green
- Carnival of the Green #144!
Topics: Waste |
So interesting. I was in Park City a few days ago, and saw the Olympic Park, and then walked through the town imagining it being filled with athletes and spectators from around the world. While I deeply respect the one-love aspect of the Games, they do have a massive footprint. So, it’s sort of a catch-22 for me… but, can the global feel-good quotient really be measured? Maybe that’s enough to offset the footprint? Hard to quantify!
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