Top 10 Wimbledon Sustainability Facts

Wimbledon attracts almost half a million tennis fans each year to watch the world's finest tennis players at the All-England Club. But how sustainable is the historic tournament?


Here edie takes a look at Wimbledon’s Top 10 sustainability facts:

1)  The Championships at Wimbledon see a huge amount of waste: from tea bags to empty champagne bottles and left over smoked salmon. This waste is sent to a Material Recovery Facility for recycling, or non-recyclables are processed at an ‘Energy from Waste’ facility. Ultimately 95% of Wimbledon waste is diverted from landfill.

2)  With the introduction of a simple two-streamed waste bin system at the All-England Club The Championships has seen waste recycling rise to 53% of all waste.

3)  The All-England Club makes use of a water recycling plant and 95% of all water used is recycled.

4)  Wimbledon is the largest annual single sports catering operation in Europe with 350,000 cups of tea and 230,000 glasses of Pimm’s served to the tennis fans. Plastic waste is a primary concern, however, and 250,000 bottles of water are sold during the tournament.

5)  The air management system in Centre Court processes 143,000 litres of air per second to optimise playing conditions and eight litres of fresh air per person per second is pumped into the court.

6)  Sports manufacturer Slazenger supplies 52,000 tennis balls to Wimbledon each year with the wool sourced from farms in New Zealand and clay sourced from the USA.

7)  The felt for the tennis balls is woven in Stroud before travelling 6,720 miles for production in The Philippines.

8)  A Wimbledon Tennis ball travels through 11 countries before it reaches The Championships, ready for use by the players.

9)  In total a Slazenger tennis ball travels 50,570 miles to reach the tennis courts at Wimbledon.

10) Wimbledon’s famous strawberries and cream are locally sourced from within a hundred miles, nearly all of the strawberries coming from Kent having been picked at 5.30 that morning. In total, 28,000kg of strawberries are consumed during the fortnight (which is equivalent to 112,000 punnets) with more than 7,000 litres of cream!

Think you know your Wimbledon facts? Take edie’s Wimbledon sustainability quiz to see if you will be on Centre Court or bowing out in round one…

Matt Field

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