Sochi Olympic Skating Center (pictured on the left) & Maly Ice Palace (pictured on the right). The AP is reporting that despite Russia's promise of "zero waste" construction, a state-owned railroad has been illegally dumping construction waste.
Flickr/Sochi 2014 Winter Games
Russia promised the greenest Olympics yet when it hosts next year's winter games. But the country is getting a public-relations black eye after revelations a state company has been dumping potentially contaminated construction waste from the site of the games in Sochi.
The Associated Press reports that Russia's state-owned rail monopoly is dumping tons of construction waste into what authorities call an illegal landfill, raising concerns of possible contamination in the water that directly supplies Sochi.
That runs counter to one of the promises Russia made in its winning bid to land the Winter Olympics: a "Zero Waste" program that promised the cleanest games ever, saying it would refrain from dumping construction waste and rely on reusable materials, according to the AP report.
So far, the Sochi Games have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to the green olympics medal count. The London Summer Games in 2012 drew a gold, two silvers and a bronze from the Telegraph of London. The highest marks went for the games' use of recycled building materials, resulting in steel useage that was one tenth of what the summer games in Beijing required four years earlier.
Steel consumption and hazy air aside, the United Nations declared that China met or exceed all its goals for meeting environmental and sustainability standards. The U.N. study suggested that the biggest gains were made in air quality.
-- David Steves