Industry News

Croke Park maintains sustainability drive with ban on single-use plastics

Croke Park, home of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in Dublin, has stepped up its sustainability efforts by banning the use of all single-use plastics at the stadium.

The Joe.ie website said the initiative will make the stadium the first in the world to be accredited to international standards ISO 14001 and ISO 20121, in Environmental Management and Sustainable Event Management, respectively.

The Environmental, Sustainability and Safety Management Group (ESSMG), Croke Park’s sustainability team, is currently drafting a new sustainability strategy for the stadium, with the single-use plastics announcement the latest part of this initiative.

Croke Park’s director of communications, Alan Milton, said: “Match-goers at Croke Park for the Leinster Football semi-finals on June 10 will find their tea and coffee served in cups in which only vegetable-based plastics are used, allowing these cups to be disposed of in the stadium’s organic waste stream, thus entering into a cycle in which compost produced from stadium organic waste is made available each year to members of the local community for use in local and community gardens.”

Conferences and work events held at the stadium on weekdays will also utilise reusable glass bottles.

Milton added: “The next step for the stadium is to further reduce the plastic consumed in match-day catering options and the stadium sustainability and catering teams are working together to bring in measures before the end of the 2018 season that will see disposable plastic being phased out in bars and concession units.”

Image: Fraser Reid