Yu Xiaoxuan, vice director of the environment department of the Beijing 2008 Games said the city will spare no efforts to reduce any negative impact on Beijing because of the Olympic Games while striving to use any opportunity because of the Olympics to improve Beijing’s ecological environment and raise the public’s awareness of environmental protection.
China Daily reports that according to Yu a 6,000 square-metre solar power system, funded partly by Italy, is under construction and when completed it will provide hot water for 16,000 athletes and save 2,000 tons of coal a year.
Other improvements include a heating and cooling project for a 410,000 square-metre building that uses recycled water, which Yu called the largest of its kind in China. It is expected to save 6,000 tons of coal a year.
Yu has said the Beijing Olympic Village will have a 500-kilowatt solar power station and use motor vehicles that have zero or little emissions. Three hundred low-emission engines have already been installed in Beijing’s buses.
Also every BOCOG staff member has been told to work through “greener” approaches to saving energy and water, and have been asked to recycle resources on a voluntary basis.
BOCOG requires all projects for the Games to reach the ISO 14001 standard, which is an international standard system for safety management and environmental protection. The projects will also have to meet the requirements of many green technology and management policies.
Four new sports venues projects have been cut in favour of four temporary stadiums, and an existing one in Beijing, which will be renovated.
BOCOG requires designated Games’ hotels to abide by the highest standards of pollution prevention, resource and energy conservation, and plant and animal usages, reports China Daily.
So far 300 new buses donated by Italy, with cutting-edge intelligent control systems to avoid congestion, are appearing on roads in Beijing and the transportation mobility management systems has been upgraded to prevent pollution during and after the Games.
Meanwhile weather forecasting services are being introduced to the Olympics that will benefit the country after the Games, said Qin Dahe, Director of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), which would likely to continue after the Games, reports the People’s Daily.
Forecasters launched a first round of practice drills Saturday to continue until Wednesday. The drills include a simulation of the entire process forecasters will go through during the Games as well as emergency plan practices and the safeguard plan for the torch relay.
Wang Bangzhong, deputy director of the Forecasting Services and Disaster Mitigation Department of the CMA said, “Olympic weather services will include regular weather forecasting, including the temperature, rain and visibility, but we are also developing new weather service products”.
Also an emergency role-play was launched on the assumption that a poisonous pollutant was leaked at Wukesong Sports Centre, one of the main competition venues.
