Albion today celebrate Plastic Free Day by announcing the Club’s plans to add green to the blue and white colours of The Hawthorns.
The Baggies have launched their own programme of change designed to turn the Club’s famous old home into a enviromentally friendly stadium in the coming months and years.
It will go hand in hand with The Albion Foundation’s “Eco Albion” initiative for which our community arm will deliver six to 12-week school programmes designed to educate schoolchildren around single-use plastics and its impact on our world.
Midfielders Jake Livermore and Matt Phillips visited Tipton Green Junior School earlier this year to endorse the Foundation's work, which can be seen in the video above. Albion have chosen 'Plastic Free Day' as the launch date for the project; a day that is also David Attenborough's birthday.
Operations Director Mark Miles is heading up the programme which is on course to achieve its first target of eliminating from the Club all single use non-recyclable products by next month June 2019.
“The long term target is to remove all single-use items from use,” he says. “I think everyone acknowledges that we are reaching a point where the proliferation of plastics in our daily lives is causing serious problems for the environment.
“It is the responsibility of institutions such as ours to do all we can to combat the problem and send a clear message for the future.”
Albion have made a start in recent months by ticking off the following objectives:
- Electricity supply to stadium is now from fully renewable sources;
- All stirrers removed from Conference & Events and catering and replaced with spoons;
- All plastic stirrers from concourse replaced with wooden stirrers;
- All plastic straws replaced with paper ones;
- All sachets removed from use and replaced with refillable sauce bottles;
- All disposable cups removed from use and replaced with reusable ones (media, stadium, Academy);
- Usage of plastic shop bags reduced significantly. No new ones will be ordered;
- New biodegradable bags available to purchase from club shop
Future targets will see the Club endeavour to complete:
- Installation of sauce dispensers on concourses;
- Installation of sauce / condiment stations on concourses;
- Reusable cups on concourses for beer / soft drinks;
- Replacement of plastic bottles with “box” products;
- Increased separation of waste (food, cardboard, bottles etc);
- Cardboard compactor;
- Removal of plastic bags from kit supplies;
- Installation of water coolers on concourse and around Academy site (install of polypipe on site);
- Academy players to be given reusable water bottles for 19/20 season with no use of plastic bottles;
- Foundation to explore distribution of water bottles to match day packages that can be used on the concourses;
- System where match day media accreditation lanyards are re-used;
- EV chargers to stadium and training ground;
- Sponsored club electric vehicle / van;
- Reduce paper items sent to supporters;
- Ensure programme fully recyclable;
- Encourage use of print at home tickets and use of mobile tickets to reduce need for paper tickets;
Meanwhile the Foundation will hold practical workshops in an effort to increase the pupil’s plastic awareness, providing children with knowledge to help not only the local community but impact on a wider scale.
It is hoped that using the power of the Albion badge will encourage schools and other organisations to create their own initiatives for the fight against plastic.
