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Limiting Environmental Impact Of Winter X Games
ASPEN, CO (AP) - The cups and plasticware are made of corn, the plates and napkins
from a sugarcane byproduct. The leftovers became compost and grease from the
kitchen was turned into biodiesel, which powered the buses and snowcats.
There was even prizes for fans who separated cans and plastic into recycling
bins.
With thousands of people descended upon Buttermilk Mountain for the Winter
X Games, there was undoubtedly some environmental impact. Organizers did their
best to make it as small as possible, limiting the event’s carbon footprint
through a program called X Game Environmentality.
“
This was an amazing initiative,” said snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler, a
two-time X Games gold medalist and Olympic silver medalist.
“
Global warming and the climate change is very important to me because it affects
my livelihood, but I think every one of us has the responsibility to do everything
we can to get our planet back on balance. What the X Games did by reducing the
carbon footprint, I think it’s a great charge for the demographic that
they appeal to.”
Environmental consciousness has been a part of the X Games since its inception
in 1995. Organizers didn’t have much choice back then, in part because
the first event was held at Fort Adams, a Newport, RI structure that had stood
since before the War of 1912.
But there’s always a low-environmental impact approach behind the scenes
at the X Games, with staff and crew recycling everything from aluminum cans
to construction materials. Organizers decided to expand the program at the
2005
Summer X Games, creating X Games Environmentality as a way to get fans involved
in the process.
“
Environment protection has always been at the core of our philosophy of how we
approach our events,” said Michelle Plotkin, an event producer for the
Winter X Games. “From Day 1 we’ve always grown our event to manage
our environment as best we can so we can leave it better than we found it.
The X Games Environmentality was a way for us to leave sort of a public side
of it,
a little bit of a legacy to our fans.
The initiative is wide-ranging, involving everyone from fans to the staff
who work behind the scenes.
Spectators were rewarded for using recycling bins by receiving tokens that
could be redeemed for prizes at a recycling store within X Fest village. One
kid last
year earned nearly 500 tokens and exchanged them for a new snowboard.
The cups, plates, napkins and plasticware were made from renewable and compostable
materials, including plastic made from corn and Bagasse, a sugarcane byproduct.
The base of the superpipe was built out of dirt rather than snow, saving
4 million gallons of water and about $15,000 in energy costs annually, and
the
media guide
was printed on recycled paper, with a recycled plastic binding.
Leftover food was separated out and turned into compost, with nearly 10,000
pounds diverted from landfills since the program’s inception. Shuttle
buses, along with snowcats and heavy equipment used at Winter X, all ran on
biodiesel fuels
made from ethanol and fats and oils.
The program also will plant 500 trees in the nearby Pike-San Isabel National
Forest on behalf of each athlete that participated in the Winter X Games, a
grove that is expected to pull out 138 tons of carbon monoxide annually.
“
I love the idea that they want to leave this planet as it was before,” said
Bleiler, an Aspen native. “They want to come and have this amazing event,
but equalize the footprint by doing all the steps that they’re doing to
make it really eco-friendly. More and more people are starting to do this and
it’s a great step in the right direction.”
Bleiler has selfish reasons for supporting any initiative that fights global
warming - without snow, she can’t make a living. But saving the environment
is something that’s been important to her for a long time.
Sure, she drives a car and flies around the world to compete in snowboarding
events, increasing the world’s carbon monoxide output, but she also does
little things like replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent
bulbs and unplugging electronic devices when she’s not using them.
Bleiler also has included a line made of recycled products in her new Gretchen
Bleiler Collection of clothing and accessories for Oakley.
“
It’s all about making lifestyle changes,” she said. “They don’t
have to be huge steps, but even the little things help. It makes a little difference,
but if we all do it, it adds up and we can have winter for years and years
to come.”
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