How green are the "Green Games"?

One of Sydney’s greatest failures is that it will leave half a million tonnes of untreated and uncontained dioxin contaminated waste in Homebush Bay and Rhodes Peninsula. The area – approximately 2.5km from the Olympics site – is one of the five worst dioxin waste spots in the world and the only place in Australia where it is illegal to fish. The waste is the toxic legacy of chemical factories Union Carbide and ICI (now Orica) which operated in the area from the 1960s. In 1997Greenpeace found and contained 69 corroding barrels of dioxin waste on the banks of Homebush Bay. The NSW Government has failed to keep its promise of a clean-up before the Games. It has also failed to announce a concrete plan for the cleanup after the Games.

2. Airconditioning and refrigeration in Olympic venues

Sydney’s Environmental Guidelines are very clear that ozone-depleting gases (CFCs, HCFCs) and greenhouse gases (HFCs) should not be used at the Olympics site. Unfortunately, not a single Olympics venue using air conditioning meets these guidelines. Catering and other refrigeration needs have also been met by a systematic and widespread use of CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs. Only a small number of refrigeration units on site will meet the Guidelines.

3. Polluting Holden Car Fleet for VIPs

After initially suggesting it would provide some Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG)-powered vehicles as part of its more than 3000 Olympic VIP car fleet, car maker Holden failed to do so. In a clear case of ‘do as we say, not as we do’, Olympic VIPs will be travelling around Sydney in low-efficiency, petrol burning cars while spectators take the more environmental public transport option. Holden reneged on public promises that even eight per cent of this fleet would be LPG-powered.

4. Management of toxic landfill at Olympics site after Games

Sydney’s Olympics site is a former dumping ground for low-to-medium waste such as municipal garbage, construction waste and asbestos. As organisers have chosen to landfill and drain leachate rather than treat the waste, the site requires decades of environmental management after the Games.

In 1997, The New South Wales Government pledged in Parliament to commit $21 million to a state-of-the-art cleanup of the former Union Carbide site in time for the Games. This site and the adjacent bay constitute some of the most polluted areas in the world. The Government failed to deliver on its promise.

5. Lack of transparency, management difficulties and failure to keep accurate environmental records

Olympic organisers, the Olympic Coordination Authority (OCA) and Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG), were often difficult to work with in relation to their Environmental Guidelines commitments. As the Games approached, Greenpeace found it very hard to gather information about the success and failure of specific environmental initiatives due to non-disclosure, secrecy and inadequate monitoring.

Other failures:

• Bondi Beach Volleyball – the community does not want it and organisers are unsure about the structure’s environmental impact.
• Cancellation of an Environmental Pavilion to educate spectators about Sydney’s environmental efforts.
• Use of PVC in Olympic mascots produced by sponsor, Westpac.
• Ferry system servicing the site is to be used by VIPs only, no spectators.

Since the early days of Greenpeace's efforts to get environmental protection on the Olympic agenda, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch has taken it on board. In his keynote address to the first conference on Sport and the Environment in 1986, Mr Samaranch said: "The International Olympic Committee is resolved to ensure that the environment becomes the third dimension of Olympism, the first and second being sport and culture." The planet needs not only the IOC but also everyone to take up the baton of environmental solutions and run with it after the Games.