The GAA bans single-use plastics in Croke Park

The Drumcondra venue is paving the way for sporting grounds around the world.

The GAA has banned the use of all single-use plastics in Croke Park, as the organisation joins the fight against pollution.

The move will deem 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.

As it stands, Croke Park maintains a strong commitment to sustainable and environmentally-progressive practices.

Under Croke Park’s commitments to these international standards, the stadium sets itself annual targets in waste and energy usage reduction and in 2018 the focus is on cutting the stadium’s production of plastic waste.

Croke Park’s  sustainability team – officially known as the Environmental, Sustainability and Safety Management Group (ESSMG) – is composed of members of the Croke Park’s facilities, events and community teams as well as representatives of the stadium’s catering, maintenance, cleaning and mechanical and electrical contractors.

The ESSMG is overseeing in 2018 the drafting of a new Sustainability Strategy for the stadium in order to identify plastic-reduction opportunities and goals and, most importantly, to ensure that these are implemented in a workable and sustainable manner for a real and lasting change in behaviours and mind-sets.

https://twitter.com/CrokePark/status/988079233816846337

In a statement released by Croke Park's Director of Communications, Alan Milton, it was revealed that hot drinks in the venue, from now on, will be served in organic and compostable cups.

"Match-goers at Croke Park for the Leinster Football semi-finals on 10 June 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."

Those attending conferences and work events in the venue on weekdays will be served drinks in reusable glass bottles.

"Meanwhile, those conference attendees who visit the stadium on weekdays have their water – both still and sparkling – served in refillable glass bottles.

"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."

The efforts to reduce plastic waste production in the stadium are part of an ongoing broader waste strategy in the Croke Park that has not only seen the stadium maintain a 0% waste to landfill record but also achieve a year-on-year reduction in overall waste production as well as constant improvements in recycling figures.

While the 2018 focus for the stadium is on plastic reduction, the ESSMG also remain acutely aware to the stadium’s other sustainability goals, which manage energy usage in the venue as well as replace current light fittings with LED bulbs.

The first phase of this was completed in late 2017.

The move has prompted Irish social media users to push for the idea in other sporting venues. https://twitter.com/LaobhaoiseNihE/status/1003980759164649473 Croke Parks joins a number of Irish venues who, as of late, have decided to ditch plastic and opt for more sustainable options. A number of bars and restaurants, such as Wigwam, Whelan's and The Generator Hostel in Dublin, have swapped plastic straws for biodegradable paper ones in hopes to cut down on waste. Sweet Beat Café in Sligo, a plant-based wholefoods café, has even committed to doling out metal straws to its customers. Back in February, the EU planned to ban the use of single-use coffee cups, a move which they hope to have fully implemented by 2030. Around 26 million tonnes of plastic waste are generated in Europe each year, with only 30% of such waste collected for recycling.