Biking is certainly an eco-sustainable way to move. Officials of the annual Giro d’Italia, one of three three-week Grand Tours that include the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, embraced this spirit of sustainability through
Biking is certainly an eco-sustainable way to move. Officials of the annual Giro d’Italia, one of three three-week Grand Tours that include the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, embraced this spirit of sustainability through their Ride Green project, dedicated to environmental protection and responsibility.
This year marked the 100th edition of the Giro d’Italia road race, which began in Sardinia on Friday 5 May and ended in Milan yesterday. Ride Green is the project of RCS Sport dedicated to environmental protection and sustainability born in 2016 from the collaboration between RCS Sport and E.R.I.C.A. (Education, Research, Information and Environmental Communication), that achieved an 84 per cent recycling rate for waste created across the whole event in its first year.
Ride Green is the first substantial activity to make the Giro a substainable event after the WWF analysis of environmental impact. For each of the 21 stage, there was separate collection of garbage in the exhibition areas and citizens, participants and media involved have been sensitized on environmental issues.
The aim of the project is to spread the importance of the protection of environment and landscape thanks to Italian and International media that follow the Giro.
Each stage of the Giro involves every year tens of thousands of people, including athletes, teams, spectators and workers, and one of the aspects with the greatest environmental impacts is waste generated by meals and the disposable tableware used to consume them, which is normally disposed of with unsorted waste.
The dining areas at the 21 stages of the Giro had disposable cups, plates, containers and cutlery made from Mater-bi, the biodegradable and compostable bioplastic produced by Italian company Novamont, which can be disposed of in composting plants together with food waste. This reduces greenhouse gas emissions, cuts consumption of energy and non-renewable resources and completes a virtuous circle: the raw materials of agricultural origin from which Mater-bi is made return to the soil through the processes of biodegradation and composting without releasing pollutants.
by Michael Burgundy