Support The Moscow Times!

Russian World Cup City's New Field Made From Recycled Plastic Cups

Dmitry Feoktistov / TASS

It feels just like walking on broken... plastic.

Aspiring football players will be humming that classic tune when they take to the pitch at a newly opened field made entirely out of recycled plastic cups.

Budweiser, the football championship's official beer since 1986, said the unique field that was opened in the 2018 FIFA World Cup host city of Sochi is part of its sustainability drive.

“More than 50,000 cups collected at arenas and at the FIFA Fan Fests after the summer tournament have been used to create a new sports facility,” Budweiser said in a press release Thursday.

Marco Materazzi, a 2006 World Cup winner who attended the opening in Sochi, gave the field an “excellent” grade despite its “strangeness.”

The 65-meter-long, 42-meter-wide pitch will soon move 1,000 kilometers northeast to Volzhsky, Volgograd region, said the head of Krasnodar region’s sports administration.

“Used plastic can turn into very interesting projects,” Andrei Markov, the regional sports chief, observed.

Read more