Conchita Wurst said that the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 would be glamourous. It will certainly be, but the organization is also up to making it glamorously green. An event that gathers crowds of people is a chance for lots of waste. But this time, it won’t go to waste…

In line with its commitment to make the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 a Green Event, the Austrian broadcaster ORF announced that it has joined forces with Altstoff Recycling Austria AG (ARA), its official partner for sustainability, which will provide 300 garbage bins that will make waste-sorting and proper recycling possible. The ORF Executive Producer Mr. Edgar Böhm and ARA’s Board Executive Mr. Werner Knausz met at the Wiener Stadthalle for the assessment of the initiative at the very heart of the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest.

Mr. Böhm declared that with ARA we have an experienced partner. The Stadthalle and the surroundings will show its cleanest face while we can focus on the show.

The 300 bins will be monitored in order to avoid overfilling. 15 people around the Wiener Stadthalle will keep an eye on the containers that will have compartments for residual waste, plastic bottles, paper, glass, metal and organic waste.

Waste reduction and sorting are an important part of the Green Event classification in accordance with the Austrian Ecolabel and ÖkoEvent.

It is particularly important that everything is documented for a sustainability report, says Mr. Knausz.

ORF and ARA want to ensure that the Eurovision Song Contest meets the Austrian standards of cleanliness and sustainability. The idea, as Mr. Knausz explained, is to “throw instead of throwing away” (Reinwerfen statt Wegwerfen). This concept will be evoked by the mascot of Reinwerfen statt Wegwerfen, the City Cleaner. A number of City Cleaners will show the visitors in Vienna how to sort the waste. You will notice them in their cheerfully unmistakable costumes, as you can see in the pictures published by ORF and ARA.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2015 will be held in Vienna, Austria, after the victory last year of Conchita Wurst with Rise like a phoenix.

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