Dan Meis, the architect behind Everton’s planned new stadium on Bramley-Moore Dock, is considering using recycled ocean plastic to create seats that will be fitted at the state-of-the-art venue.
Everton submitted a planning application for the stadium to Liverpool City Council in December. The stadium would have a capacity of 52,000 and Everton is hopeful of moving into the ground by 2023.
In an interview with Sky Sports News, Meis discussed ways in which the stadium can be environmentally friendly, with recycled ocean plastic one option under consideration for the seat creation.
“It occurred to me that a big part of our stadiums are seats that are plastic and surely there must be a way to rethink this,” Meis said. “It’s something we had never really looked at before so right now we are looking at designing a prototype of a stadium seat with a significant amount of recovered seat plastic.
“The entire world is becoming more sensitive to the environment every day, thankfully, and stadiums are one of the last building types that are getting that consideration. Because they’re so big, if you can make intelligent decisions about materials and how you source them, you can really make a big impact.”
A number of Premier League clubs are involved in the Sky Ocean Rescue campaign, which raises awareness on issues relating to ocean health. Leicester City has supported the campaign since 2017, while Chelsea and West Ham United last year announced plans to trial an initiative to reduce plastic waste at their home stadia.
Sky Ocean Rescue ambassador Emily Penn visited Everton last week to raise awareness of how clubs can cut down on single-use plastics by introducing reusable cups. She said: “How do you get over that challenge of serving 40,000 pints of beer or soft drinks during a 15-minute interval without using single-use plastics?
“It’s such a big challenge but the launch of this reusable cup scheme is going to save 75,000 cups just in this season.”
Earlier this month, Everton announced that Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov had agreed to pay £30m (€36m/$39m) for an exclusive option on the naming rights to its new stadium.
Image: Everton
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