London Shoots for Low Impact Olympics

  • A projected image of London's Olympic Stadium for the 2012 games (Photo courtesy of London 2012)

There’s been a lot of talk during the Beijing Olympics about China’s

efforts to be more environmentally friendly. The host of the 2012 Summer

games hopes to do even better. Julie Grant reports that London is billing its

Olympics the first low environmental impact games:

Transcript

There’s been a lot of talk during the Beijing Olympics about China’s

efforts to be more environmentally friendly. The host of the 2012 Summer

games hopes to do even better. Julie Grant reports that London is billing its

Olympics the first low environmental impact games:


London already has great sporting venues, so it plans to use places like Wimbledon for the Olympics.

The city doesn’t want to build new facilities that will just sit there after the games are over. Taxpayers in Sydney, Australia, are still paying millions annually for underused facilities built for the 2000 Olympics.

London is building an Olympic Park, but has chosen an old industrial site in a neglected section of East London and hired local workers for the clean up.

90% of the demolition materials have been recycled or reused.

Also, the city doesn’t want the symbol of the games – the flame – to burn fossil fuels and add to the global warming problem. So Olympic officials are searching for a low carbon alternative.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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