Last week I went to the Olympics…
So did thousands of other people, some, like me, probably didn;t think they were that interested in sport, until they got hooked by the events on the TV. In my case it was the plucky GB Women’s Volleyball team who, after an astonishing victory on Monday night saw me and my daughter heading off to Earl’s Court on Friday.
While the team didn’t get a win, I was impressed by the recycling and waste-reduction efforts of the games, even though this was ‘only’ Earl’s Court and not the Olympic Park.
The Olympic Park Energy Centre
LOCOG received sustainability advice from many sources, including NNFCC, and this was in evidence through the use of compostible food packaging and the numerous recycling bins provided.
Over at the man Olympic Park at Stratford, recycled materials and sustainable wood have been used in various parts of the construction, and the Olympic Energy Centre uses biomass alongside its gas-fired CHP engines, with the heat used to heat the water in the Aquatics Centre.
In fact the Energy Centre is ‘actually two facilities’ that provide a quarter of all the electricity and all the hot water and heating for the site. Alongside the natural gas boilers there are three 3.5 MW bio-mass boilers, three 7 MW chillers and one 4 MW absorption chiller.
The organisers weren’t able to go with their original plan for a biogas-fuelled Olympic torch however. “The Commission understands that an attempt to use biogas for the flame was made but the very large quantity of gas required and the cost of installing substantial storage capacity with no obvious legacy use ruled out this option,” the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 said in a statement.
