Sustainability and waste management of the 2015 prince George Canada winter games

Abstract

Urban boosterism is increasingly being employed by cities around the world to garner provincial, national or even international attention. In an effort to rebrand and market itself as a ‘Winter City’, Prince George, Canada hosted the 2015 Canada Winter Games. However, urban boosterism focuses on economic influx and financial sustainability with little attention to environmental sustainability. Hosting mega-events like these results in a significant influx of visitors over a short period of time. To accommodate for this extreme change in a city’s population, it is important to consider the concomitant environmental burden, particularly in terms of waste over the period of time and the need to dispose of it safely and properly. To examine the environmental impact of hosting this event, a waste audit was conducted on four of the venues to determine how much and what types of waste was accumulated. The largest contributor to the waste stream was food waste, occupying more than 1/3 of the entire samples that was accumulated in the volunteer lounges. This study focuses on the consideration of waste types and areas in mega-events.