For Great Events – With Minimum Garbage!

Imagine how many various cultural, sports and other events are held every day, every weekend, every month. Millions of people visit them, after which there remain mountains and mountains of garbage. And hardly anyone thinks about how to reduce the amount of garbage and tries to protect our environment in a profound way.

Our project is a first in fencing, the purpose of which is to show that competitions can be organised with minimal impact to the environment! Moreover, this is not just any competition, but the European Fencing Championships for Juniors (U20) and Cadets (U17). Additionally, it is the younger generations whose understanding and care for the future will make a difference in the long run.

Our aim is to organise the largest sporting event for younger fencers in European fencing in 2020 with a minimum amount of garbage and minimal impact to the environment.

http://porecfencing2020.com

The Croatian Fencing Federation and the Fencing Club Špada from Poreč are organisers of the European Fencing Championships for Juniors and Cadets. Poreč is a small resort town on the shores of one of the cleanest seas in the world, the Adriatic. The city is surrounded by vineyards, olive trees and other agricultural goods which are very popular in our region - Istria - and are known for their quality and environmentally friendly growing customs.

Everyone knows that the largest amount of plastic waste is generated from empty bottles. Sometimes we are so thirsty that we drink a Liter of water in a few seconds. And there is an empty bottle left after every other visitor, often ending up on the grass fields and around the venues, instead on the designated places.

Croatia, the organisers of the European Championships, is famous for its clean and nourishing water. You can always open the tap and drink pleasant and high-quality water, containing one of the highest quantities of healthy minerals. It is for this reason that we hardly buy bottled water in Croatia.

This is the idea we want to convey to our guests - athletes, delegations, guests: “Do not buy bottled water, but drink it as much as you want for free!”

But it is clear that the athlete during the competition should always have water at hand, and not run around the hall in search of it. Therefore we plan to give each athlete a personalised reusable sports bottle and install coolers in the gym so that it can be refilled at any time. This will significantly reduce the number of empty containers, and each athlete will receive a souvenir in the form of a sports bottle, which will for a long time remind him or her of their participation in the European Championships and serve in future training and competitions.

We will not forget about the coaches, doctors, delegates and all visiting guests. Each member of the official delegation will also receive a bottle, but somewhat smaller, so that it fits easily in a bag or backpack. And each guest will be able to purchase a bottle in a special store of our partners for a small fee.

And of course - the sale of water in plastic bottles at our sporting event and around the venue will be prohibited.

The price of a high-quality sports bottle made of plastic with a volume of 750 ml is around 10 Euro, printing a logo and putting the name of the athlete another 5 Euro. Thus, the cost of one bottle for an athlete will be around 15 Euros.

We will not give our athletes bottles of metal or glass, because they are heavier than multiple plastic bottles, and fencers carry a large amount of equipment.

1.100 athletes * 15 Euros = 16.500 Euro

The price of a regular water bottle for members of delegations and guests with a volume of 300 ml is 3 Euro, logo printing 2 Euro. Thus, the cost of one bottle is 5 Euro.

2.000 members of delegations and guests * 5 Euro = 10.000 Euro

The total cost for the project is 26.500 Euro.

What exactly do you get for the contribution:

At a minimum, each eco-video of the project will end with credits indicating all those that care and supported us. We will point out all major contributors to the title frames of video content as the main partners. And we will be amongst the first to raise the topic of garbage reduction at large events and guide towards a new step for preserving the environment.