“The Beautiful Game” of soccer, the world’s most popular sport, begins its fevered quadrennial tournament of hype, excitement, defeat, and victory as teams from around the planet begin battling it out today at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The U.S. takes on England tomorrow June 12th at 2:30pm Eastern Time on ABC. As the pitches swarm with nutmegging (getting by a defender by kicking the ball between his legs), slide-tackling, shirt-grabbing, bicycle-kicking athletes, here are a few green tidbits about this year’s World Cup.
(Go USA!)

• Africa’s very first high speed train, the Gautrain, has been built to help the crowds move around the country and get to the venues easier.
• Nike’s national teams, including Brazil, Portugal, and the Netherlands, will be wearing jerseys made from recycled polyester, which the sports-apparel giant is hailing as the most environmentally friendly and technologically advanced kits in football history. With the recycled jerseys, Nike has diverted nearly 13 million plastic bottles from the landfill.

• The Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa is made from 30% reused materials form the old stadium. The stadium also has rainwater collection system, water-saving installations, energy-efficient heating and cooling systems and natural ventilation design
• According to the Guardian the impact of millions traveling to the match, energy used in construction and facilities and many other sources make this World Cup
  produce 6 times more carbon than the last one in Germany.
• Staging the World Cup will create more carbon emissions than a billion cheeseburgers.

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