South African Biodiversity Media
Is the only Green Thing about the World Cup the Grass?
Event organisers go through great strides to think outside the box on how to be ‘green’, they have loads of press releases about how they’ve ‘greened’ the event and people who attend have a warm fuzzy feeling that they are being green. However, it isn’t long before people choose convenience over reading by putting plastic in the closest bin rather than the designated one. While some people go the whole nine yards on recycling, being sustainable and buying only organic, the mass of society is still interested in instant gratification, convenience and having a comfortable lifestyle.
The cities of South Africa had a lot of good ideas on how to green the World Cup, but can society implement the concepts and actually stick with the plan. Being ‘green’ might be trendy, but another current trend happening right now is displaying country flags on cars and blowing vuvulezas.
Flags stuck on cars show our pride for our countries, but there is a reason Cape Town is known as the Cape of Storms. Already a few have found their way to the gutters and trees on the side of the roads. The question is also even if the flags hold on through the winter, will they still be used after the hype is over, or will our cities dumps and waste piles be decorated with cocktail flags. Then there are the vuvuleza’s; regardless of the obvious flaws, with noise pollution and the amount of plastic which has been used to create them, where will these plastic creations of chaos be dumped after the game?
Read More: southafricanbiodiversity.co.za/opinion/230-is-the-only-gr...
Is the only Green Thing about the World Cup the Grass?
Event organisers go through great strides to think outside the box on how to be ‘green’, they have loads of press releases about how they’ve ‘greened’ the event and people who attend have a warm fuzzy feeling that they are being green. However, it isn’t long before people choose convenience over reading by putting plastic in the closest bin rather than the designated one. While some people go the whole nine yards on recycling, being sustainable and buying only organic, the mass of society is still interested in instant gratification, convenience and having a comfortable lifestyle.
The cities of South Africa had a lot of good ideas on how to green the World Cup, but can society implement the concepts and actually stick with the plan. Being ‘green’ might be trendy, but another current trend happening right now is displaying country flags on cars and blowing vuvulezas.
Flags stuck on cars show our pride for our countries, but there is a reason Cape Town is known as the Cape of Storms. Already a few have found their way to the gutters and trees on the side of the roads. The question is also even if the flags hold on through the winter, will they still be used after the hype is over, or will our cities dumps and waste piles be decorated with cocktail flags. Then there are the vuvuleza’s; regardless of the obvious flaws, with noise pollution and the amount of plastic which has been used to create them, where will these plastic creations of chaos be dumped after the game?
Read More: southafricanbiodiversity.co.za/opinion/230-is-the-only-gr...