Zero-waste Olympic Games [waste management]

Abstract

The Olympic Park project in London, UK, is a four-phase challenge. First, the 2.5sq km site had be cleared and cleaned, and waste water and sewage facilities have be installed, before a whole other sequence of challenges will arise. Throughout the 77 days of the Games, 17,000 athletes, 20,000 journalists and up 800,000 spectators and visitors will pack into the Park. After this, it subsides into legacy mode the Plan, the Clearance, the Realisation and the Deconstruction. The ambitious mission statement of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) was to deliver zero-waste Games. It aimed design-out waste and listed a waste hierarchy of reduction, reuse and recycling, with landfill as a last resort.