Event organizers go to great lengths to think outside the box about how to be ‘green’, they have a bunch of press releases about how they have ‘greened’ the event and people who attend have a warm and fuzzy feeling that they are being ecological. However, it’s not long before people choose convenience over reading by putting the plastic in the nearest bin instead of the designated one. While some people go out of their way to recycle, be sustainable, and buy only organic products, the majority of society is still interested in instant gratification, convenience, and having a comfortable lifestyle.
South African cities had a lot of good ideas on how to green the World Cup, but can society implement the concepts and really stick to the plan? Being ‘green’ may be trendy, but another current trend happening right now is displaying country flags on cars and blowing vultures.
Flags plastered on cars show our pride in our countries, but there’s a reason Cape Town is known as the Cape of Storms. Some have already found their way into roadside ditches and trees. The question is also, even if the flags will stick around through the winter, will they continue to be used after the hype is over, or will the dumpsters and refuse piles of our cities be decorated with cocktail flags? Then there are the vuvulezas; Regardless of the obvious flaws, with the noise pollution and the amount of plastic that has been used to create them, where will these plastic creations of chaos be dumped after the game?
Even before the World Cup started, there were (and still are) issues about what we’re going to do with the stadiums after the event. While the stadiums are built with sustainability in mind, the idea of them never being used again is not sustainable, considering the definition of sustainable is “capable of continuing with minimal long-term effect on the environment” .
There are two big ‘green’ projects that the event has focused on. These projects, along with others, were financed by the Global Environment Fund, who donated US$1 million. The first was to green all the lighting in and around the stadiums with solar panels. 12 billboards, along with 60 traffic lights and 78 streetlights will be switched to solar power.
The second is the Green Passport, an initiative to encourage visitors to make ‘green’ decisions while in the country. The Green Passport is a 32-page brochure to be distributed to 100,000 World Cup spectators. Figure it out: That’s 320,000 pages of paper that are distributed to spectators who are there to watch a game. Think about what you do when you receive a brochure while waiting at a traffic light or a program of events at a conference.
It is to be hoped that the co-organizers of the event will place the “paper” container in a convenient place, otherwise neighbors of the lost flags could be found.