Paris Olympic Games will feature seats made from circular plastic

When there was a shortage of raw materials, it turned out that the local waste bins are a good source

Apparently, there is a shortage of virgin materials to create new plastic seatings for some of the venues of the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games. This was a perfect opportunity for creative thinking and sustainable solutions. The organizers came up with the idea to recycle the plastic that accumulates in the local waste bins and turn it into seats in the name of circularity.

As the saying goes – when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Funny enough, one of the companies behind the initiative is called Lemon Tri. This recycling team teamed up with eco-construction firm Le Pavé to collect plastic waste and transform it into shredded plastic chips.

These then serve as the base material that can be moulded into other shapes to produce whatever one needs. The shavings are mixed, heated and compressed to produce plastic sheets with flecks of colour.

From there, the seats can be made and come autumn they will be ready to install at Olympic venues such as the Arena at Porte de la Chapelle in Paris and the Olympic aquatic centre in Saint-Denis.

Plus, the Games are meant to be the greenest in history

The organizers admit that they resorted to this circular approach in production only because there were simply not enough raw materials to produce the seats. Perhaps, a bit of a communication misstep there that we notice, but we’ll overlook it for the sake of the good cause.

After all, the 2024 Olympic Games were heavily promoted as being unique in their environmental approach, which will seek to prioritize frugality and utility and reduce carbon impact.

The production of the recycled plastic seats (some 11,000 of them) is an ideal example of this approach, as it reduces energy consumption, takes waste away from incinerators and reduces carbon emissions.

100 tonnes of plastic will be needed to produce the seats, and 80% of it will be sourced from the yellow bins in the Seine-Saint-Denis district. It will also be processed locally.

“It's a huge communication tool,” says Augustin Jaclin, co-founder of Lemon Tri, speaking to Euronews. “When we tell children to come and put their bottles in the bins, (because) tomorrow they'll be in the seats of the Olympic swimming pool, it raises awareness of recycling”.