The Football Association and Veolia have donated bibs and drawstring bags made from the recycled pitch cover for the 2022 FA Cup Final to help support developmental activities at local youth football clubs.
Veolia and the FA worked together to create the original pitch cover from recyclable plastic, with the environmental services provider collecting and sorted 47,600 plastic bottles from previous events at Wembley Stadium and recycled them into PET plastic yarn.
This recycled material was then spun into the 2022 FA Cup Final’s 105 metre long and 68 metre wide match day pitch cover, emblazoned with the two finalist teams’ logos.
Fast forward to 2024, and, in line with The FA’s Sustainability Strategy: 'Save Our Resources' and Veolia’s regeneration of resources strategy, the banner has been repurposed into drawstring bags and sports bibs.
These were donated to participants of the London Girls Cup Final and local London grassroot teams.
In addition to supporting the London FA’s green development activities, this project also delivers carbon reductions as recycling plastic typically saves up to 70% of the emissions associated with virgin material production.
Supporting the 2022 FA Cup Final was just the start of the recycling journey for these plastic bottles, and it has been exciting to put sustainability first once more with this project.
“We have utilised our expertise to create bibs and bags for footballers all over the country to enjoy and showcase what can be achieved when regenerating resources.
“This is just one of the innovations we are working on to proudly support The London FA, and we are excited to continue finding sustainable solutions to make our game greener."
London FA Head of Partnerships, Aquila Burgess, adds: “We are delighted to be working with The FA and Veolia UK who have kindly helped to support some of our developmental activities.
We look forward to seeing this in practice and hope our clubs will benefit from this support”.
