Olympic recycling plans revealed

And, the man in charge of ensuring that at least 70% of this is recycled, with zero sent to landfill, is Phil Cumming, corporate sustainability manager for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG).

Mr Cummingtold letsrecycle.comthat one of the main features at the games would be the use of compostable packaging on a scale never before seen in the UK.

For the event this summer, all Olympic venue caterers will be required to ensure that any packaging they use which is likely to become contaminated with food (and therefore be hard to recycle) is compostable and comes from the same, as yet unappointed, supplier. The packaging will have to meet the European standard EN13432, meaning that it will break down and isexpected to cost a bit more than regular packaging.

Mr Cumming, says he does not know for sure that the approach will work because of the scale of the event, and points out that there is little or no guidance for waste producers on the subject.

But, he says the approach was carefully chosen with advice from WRAP and the Association for Organics Recycling (AfOR), because 40% of the catering waste expected to arise at the games will be food and will require composting anyway. He says it is also important to make recycling easy for spectators in a pressurised environment.

We have come up with an approach which has not been attempted at this scale, he comments. It might not work but we are setting out what we want to do and people will learn from that in the future. Pursuing compostables is potentially controversial but there is a growing concession that it has to be in place. Given that it comes higher than energy recovery in the waste hierarchy it has to play a role.

Mr Cumming adds that LOCOG will be carrying out tests in early 2012 to make sure that all the packaging procured was indeed compostable and could be treated by composters effectively.

Waste

In total, three waste streams will be collected at London 2012: compostables, dry recycling and residual waste.

Compostables are expected to make up around 35-40% of the 8,000 tonnes of waste collected across all Olympic venues, while dry recyclables will make up around 30%. Glass is excluded from the games for safety reasons and there will not be many cans so the vast majority of this is expected to be clear PET bottles, which are being sent for recycling by one of the event partners, Coca Cola. Some paper, in the form of leaflets, is also expected to arise.

To help visitors recycle, LOCOG is also planning another first. The organisation has been working with WRAP to develop a bespoke version of the British Retail Consortiums On-Pack Recycling Label. This will see the icons and labels matching those on appropriate bins.

There is obviously a lot of confusion over what bins to put material in so hopefully this will improve peoples awareness, says Mr Cumming. Putting the OPRL on bins is something which has never been done before.

SITA UK

All the waste generated during the games, including compostable material, will be handled by LOCOGs waste contractor SITA UK. The company secured the contract for the games in March 2011 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Waste from bins will be collected by LOCOGs cleaning contractors, Cleanevent, Servest and LSS, before being taken to a waste compound situated at every venue. SITA will then take it away for processing.

Marek Gordon, the SITA director in charge of delivering the contract, says that the aim is to recycle the material as close to source as possible and not to export it for reprocessing.

Our objective is to find home markets, he said. Most of the Olympic venues are in and around London. Wherever possible we will be taking material to a nearby location.

For compostables, the company will be seeking in-vessel composting facilities within striking distance of the games to make into PAS100 compost.

We are very much in the planning phase. All part of the project need to be carefully planned, Mr Gordon says.

While many of the subcontractors have not yet been appointed, SITA intends to meet or even surpass the 70% recycling target.

We want to recycle as much as possible as that is in the spirit of the games. We are finding markets for as many things as possible that is our objective.