As they prepared for the current Paris Olympics, organizers aimed to host the most environmentally friendly games in history. The purple running track stands as a testament to how they achieved this green goal.
During the ongoing Olympics, athletes are competing on a track made from fine powder derived from countless Mediterranean shells.
Organizers joke about it, saying, “You’ll know you’re running too fast when you start smelling the broth.”
Eco-Friendly Track for Record-Breaking
Every year, around 10 million tons of empty shells from oysters, clams, scallops, and mussels end up in landfills or the sea worldwide. So, sourcing shells for the Olympics was never a problem. Since 2021, bivalve shells from barren mollusks have been collected and transported by truck from the Italian fishing cooperative Nieddittas.
The design of the track took three years to develop. This was made possible through collaboration between the cooperative workers and engineers from Mondo, who have experience designing 12 Olympic running tracks. The developers shared that their Paris creation is the fastest Olympic track in history. The speed achievable on it is two percent higher than that of the running track used in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, according to Science Alert.
On the official Paris Olympics website, organizers noted, “Since 1972, three hundred world records have been set on Mondo athletic tracks, and we hope to see even more at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Compared to the red rubber track used in Tokyo, a significant portion of the new purple track is made from recycled eco-friendly materials. Interestingly, this is the first time an Olympic athletics track has been painted purple. However, the shells have nothing to do with this color choice; it was purely an aesthetic decision.
The true strength of the crushed shells is not visible to the naked eye. Mollusk shells are primarily composed of calcium carbonate, a resilient material often used for semi-reinforcing rubber and flooring. Therefore, instead of extracting new carbonate materials, the company utilized old shells, effectively reducing a significant amount of waste that would have ended up in landfills. Choosing to use old shells also offset harmful emissions equivalent to those produced by a diesel vehicle that has traveled 60,000 kilometers.
The engineers who developed the track believe this project is not only filled with scientific ideas but also serves as a model of commitment to sustainable development and a desire to tackle the climate crisis facing our planet.