Eden Park has played a central role in a new Greenpeace campaign marking the start of Plastic Free July in New Zealand.
The Auckland stadium, recently named Venue of the Year at the TheStadiumBusiness Awards 2024 in Manchester, is shown filling with a billion single-use plastic bottles in the CGI-generated Greenpeace video.
Greenpeace said the short video vividly illustrates the number of throwaway single-use plastic bottles sold in New Zealand every year by corporations. It is calling for a shift to a reusable model for drinks and a ban on single-use plastic bottles.
“To avoid using real plastic bottles, we have rendered the video with CGI, but the picture it paints is very real,” says Greenpeace spokesperson Juressa Lee. “Thanks to companies like Coca-Cola, the world is drowning in plastic. Here in Aotearoa alone, companies like Coke sell one billion single-use plastic bottles every year.
“Only a small portion of single-use plastic is ever recycled, but all of it inevitably breaks down into microplastic pollution.”
Eden Park has made a series of sustainability commitments itself, notably reducing water usage and rubbish separation. All food made on site is now packaged and sold in commercially compostable products. Every burger, chip, hotdog and pie is supplied in fully compostable packaging.
The venue’s website states: “At Eden Park we are committed to taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint and are currently on our own sustainable living journey. We are pleased with the progress made so far but understand that we have only just started down the road toward our goal of becoming New Zealand’s internationally recognised leader in stadium sustainability.”
