No-waste Games
Ngaom-weasste
Thanks to zero- waste games and events, public awareness about environmental protection and garbage sorting is on the rise.
Against a backdrop of green mountains and clear water, the Fuxian Lake Marathon commenced. Contrasting traditional marathons, this event called for zero-waste running and 118 runners volunteered to use non- disposable cups, becoming the torchbearers of the zero-waste campaign.
Waste from Races
An event like the Beijing Marathon with about 30,000 participants would require 500,000 paper cups along with other disposable items such as plastic bottles, sponges and food packaging. Japanese scholars estimate that the Tokyo Marathon, usually involving about 50,000 persons in total ( including athletes, working staff and audience), would produce waste and carbon emission equal to the volume discharged by 300,000 persons in a day. So, large-scale races cause extra burden on urban garbage disposal systems which have already been facing great challenges.
A single marathon event produces more wastes, and such events are becoming more frequent. In 2017, China held 1,202 marathons involving over 4.98 million participants. In 2011, the two figures were only 22 and 400,000, respectively. According to a plan for developing the marathon industry issued by China’s General Administration of Sport, marathon events held in China are expected to reach 1,900 by 2020 and attract 10 million runners. It will not be hard to achieve this goal based on the current growth rate. The frequency of outdoor concerts, carnivals and other cultural activities is also rising annually. Traditional and emerging tourist cities turn to sports and cultural events to promote the local economy. Without any measures, s, the waste from those events would pose a great threat to the environment. nt.
Green Marathons
Wu Xiao is a fan of marathons ns as well as a “green” runner. When en he realized how much waste was s
created by the events, he decided to do something. In 2016, he and several other volunteers tried zero-waste practice in several marathons and other races. “We felt great,” Wu recalled. “Both the runners and organizers recognized the idea. Players didn’t sacrifice their running experience for environmental protection and sponsors believed the idea elevated their brand value. At that time, I began to believe it was promising to promote zero-waste practice in games and events.”
“Zero-waste” does not mean no garbage at all, although that is the eventual goal of zero-waste practitioners. They propose the three Rs— reduce, reuse and recycle, focusing on rubbish reduction, non- disposable usage and waste recycling.
Later, Wu joined the Friends
of Nature, an environmental NGO, to set up Novaloop, a team specially engaged in promoting zero-waste games and providing related services. Already, they have served more than 30 largescale games and events. The Fuxian Lake Marathon is one of them. To better protect Fuxian Lake, one of the most important national drinkable water sources, the organizer of the marathon hired Wu’s team to oversee the game’s environmental protection work.
“Upon receiving the organizing committee’s invitation, we were ecstatic that they had such awareness,” exclaimed Wu. “During our preparations, we are surprised by the participants’ enthusiasm. When we were still brainstorming how to recruit enough runner-volunteers to ‘give up disposable paper cups,’ the 118 needed volunteers signed up in less than half an hour.”
In addition to reducing paper cups, the team recycled the majority of used cups and sent them to a waste paper treatment plant. At the starting and finishing lines, 30 volunteers managed 54 dustbins for different categories of waste and helped collect and sort garbage on the spot. Guided by volunteers, participants learned how to sort garbage including left- over food, bottles, paper cups and other waste.
“Maybe such a campaign only does a little for real-time environmental protection,” admitted Li Penghui, head of the Publicity Base of the Publicity and Education Center under China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment. “But it does a lot to change people’s habits.”
Cleanest Music Festival
Japan’s Fuji Rock Festival is known as “the cleanest festival in the world.” Gao Xiaosong, a famous Chinese musician, recalled his experience at the event: After the festival ended at midnight, 100,000 spectators left the venue, each holding a garbage bag. And then all of them lined up to throw the garbage in their bags into six different types of dumpsters, which lasted until 2 a.m.
On May 18 of last year, the 2018 MTA ( Music, Technology and Art) Festival opened. Wu Xiao’s team, along with some volunteers from Japan, endeavored to make it the cleanest in China. In addition to reducing and sorting garbage, a stall was set up to display how waste can be changed into valuable able things such as T-shirts with recycled ycled plastic bottles as raw material. Environmental slogans and posters ters adapted from lyrics familiar to music fans could also be found at the concert.
“Garbage sorting has been going oing on for 20 years in Japan—house- hold waste is also sorted. But China ina hasn’t done it yet. This is a big differfference,” noted Kanta Hani, founder er of ipledge, a Japanese environmental ental
protection agency that serves the “zero-waste” Fuji Rock Festival. “Fuji Rock began the zero-waste practice in 1998. After just three years of efforts, it became ‘the cleanest music festival’ in the world. I think the MTA Festival still needs at least three to five years to reach the goal.”
Wu Xiao, chief planner of the zero-waste campaign for the MTA Festival, noted that despite the gap, the improvement in Chinese people’s awareness of environmental protection is obvious. “At the end of the festival, music fans began picking up garbage that was created not only by themselves but also by others. I was really moved.”
Alongside the efforts of the public and NGOS, governments at all levels in China are encouraging zero-waste games and events. The environmental protection department of the organizing committee of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics has entrusted Wu’s Novaloop to collect experience from past events.
“As case studies, experience gleaned from past events including the MTA Festival will go into reports to be submitted to the organizing committee as part of an effort to provide references for the environmental protection work of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics,” explained Wu. “With the original aspiration for a green life, we encourage each organizer to make even tiny progress. We don’t expect a great leap and just hope our participation can contribute a little bit to China’s environmental progress.”