How Qatar achieved 'zero waste' during the FIFA Arab Cup

70% of the rubbish generated throughout the tournament in all venues was successfully recycled at Al Bayt Stadium.

This achievement was a result of a collaboration between FIFA, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, and The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC). The successful sustainability project ran throughout the tournament, and was supported by the Ministry of Municipality, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, and local contractors.

There were different key efforts to ensure the implementation of this project. Materials that produce waste were avoided, and instead replaced with recyclable products. Nine hundred reusable water bottles were distributed to the workforce and volunteers.

Various facilities were available to implement proper waste segregation. There were recycling bins available, and a composting machine for organic waste such as leftover food, biodegradable packaging and grass clippings. A baler machine was used to compress the plastic waste to make it more manageable.

Non-recyclable materials were sent to Qatar’s Domestic Solid Waste Management Centre, to be incinerated and converted into energy.

The DSWMC is the first-of-its-kind facility in the region, and one of few in the world, designed to treat an initial capacity of more than 1,550 tonnes of waste a day. It contains waste sorting and recycling facilities, landfill, a composting plant and a 1,000 tonnes per day Waste-to-Energy (WTE) incineration plant.

“Each FIFA tournament provides us an opportunity to improve and to set higher goals. The FIFA World Cup in Qatar is no exception,” said Federico Addiechi, FIFA’s Head of Sustainability & Environment. “The FIFA Arab Cup has given us the opportunity to test our operations and ensure all will be in place to achieve the waste management-related goals in the Qatar 2022 Sustainability Strategy.”

Throughout the tournaments, the FIFA Arab Cup™ organisers also ran awareness projects at all six stadiums. This included regular in-stadium screen announcements, social media posts and performances by a sustainability edutainment outreach group. The group used music to motivate people to dispose of their waste in the right bins.

Every stadium recycled at least 42% of the waste generated, with the remainder being sent to the waste management centre to be converted into energy.

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