Fost Plus supports the sustainable development plan of the 2021 UCI Road World Championships

This year, Flanders is welcoming the cycling World Championships, an event which is celebrating its centenary. An exceptional opportunity for all cycling fans to mark this occasion, but also a major challenge for the organisation, which aimed to stand out in the field of sustainable development. 

The 2021 UCI Road World Championships has put in place a sustainability plan based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and entrusted control of this project to Deloitte, which is to carry out measurements and analyses throughout the event and calculate its CO2 impact. 

During the World Cup, the ambition is to avoid as much waste as possible, reuse materials and recycle packaging. Fost Plus will support the municipalities along the route around the axes of the 4 host cities - Leuven, Antwerp, Bruges and Knokke-Heist - with logistics and communication for sorting PMD. 

In these municipalities, the local authorities and intermunicipal organisations are responsible for the collection of waste. For this task, they rely on Fost Plus’ expertise. The existing event kits were modified and updated with the new PMD sorting rules. In this context, Fost Plus offers sorting islands for use at such events, among other things. Fost Plus also provides matching beach flags that, even when it gets a bit crowded, should attract the spectators to the eco-zones where they can sort their waste. The local authorities were also able to order additional instructive sorting material, such as stickers or posters. Green teams keep the environments tidy and ensure that the waste islands are emptied in time. With the input of Fost Plus in relation to PMD, they are continuing their strong awareness-raising and motivating presence for packaging recycling. And it was a success. Indeed, 1.5 tonnes of PMD were collected.

Steven Boussemaere, Director Innovation & Business Development at Fost Plus: ‘It is important to collect all packaging materials for recycling. Outside the home, however, we handle packaging differently. For the 2021 UCI World Cycling Championships, we fully adopt our role as driver of the circular economy by supporting local authorities in realising their sustainability ambitions through PMD sorting. This way, these materials are kept in the chain as secondary raw materials for new products or packaging. This approach, which combines reusable cups in the host cities with the collection of single-use packaging in the circuit towns where such logistics cannot be set up, will undoubtedly serve as a starting point for other large-scale events in the future.’