LA Memorial Coliseum achieves “zero-waste” status to reinforce LA 2024’s Greenest Games goal. The LA Memorial Coliseum is now officially a “zero waste” sports venue, an achievement that reinforces LA 2024’s pledge to stage the Greenest Games in history and establish the Olympic Movement at the forefront of sustainable major event hosting.
The 90,000-seat venue is set to undergo a $270 million privately-funded upgrade to be finished for the 2019 college football season. Just two years after the LA Memorial Coliseum was sending all its waste to landfills, the iconic, 93 year-old stadium has now joined an elite group of trailblazing zero-waste venues in the United States setting new standards in sustainable sports event hosting.
Industry standards define zero-waste as recycling, composting or re-purposing at least 90 per cent of waste materials. The University of Southern California, the LA Memorial Coliseum operator and LA 2024 partner, reached the benchmark during professional and college football matches in November and December. The LA Memorial Coliseum becomes the largest NFL stadium and second largest college stadium to achieve zero-waste status, having re-purposed 233 tons of waste created by over one million stadium patrons this football season.
LA 2024 is now working hand-in-hand with USC to incorporate innovative, impactful green strategies into a plan to deliver a fully sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Games. USC has implemented measures such as the use of compostable trays, cutlery and cups, social media and peer-to-peer education campaigns, 150 “eco station” recycling sites around the Coliseum, and on-site waste compactors. Additional costs have been offset by offering advertising deals to sustainable vendors and waste management partners.
LA 2024 CEO Gene Sykes said: “LA 2024 has made a commitment to host the Greenest Games in history, and we are working with a range of industry-leading partners to deliver on that commitment. We do not require any permanent construction to host the Games, which eliminates the significant environmental impact many major event hosts have through large-scale building projects and allows us to dedicate time and money to optimizing the efficiency and sustainability of our venue operations. Environmental protection is high on the agenda for the City of Los Angeles and part of the culture of our bid. We are determined to make LA 2024 a Games which helps place the Olympic Movement at the forefront of sustainable major event hosting for years to come.”
LA Memorial Coliseum General Manager Joe Furin said: “The success of this program is another huge accomplishment for the Coliseum and its program sponsors who played a part in making this possible.”
LA City Councilmember and LA Memorial Coliseum Commission President Curren D. Price, Jr. said: “The Coliseum’s Zero Waste program stages environmentally friendly major sports events that not only benefits our community, but has the potential to change cities nationwide. I want to command the LA Memorial Coliseum and LA 2024 for being an example of the kind of innovative, creative and forward thinking strategies we want to see in Los Angeles. It gives me great pleasure to see sustainable practices that are aligned with the City’s vision and which address current and future climate change impacts”
LA County Supervisor and LA Coliseum Commission member Mark Ridley-Thomas said: “The LA Memorial Coliseum’s zero-waste status is a testament to what the LA sports community can achieve through effective partnerships between venue operators, institutions, private partners and public authorities. It is nothing short of remarkable that the Coliseum’s sustainability teams have been able to process up to 21 tons of waste per game in as little as eight hours.”
For more information visit www.LA24.org
photo credit Facebook www.LA24.org
