London’s Olympic Stadium to Be Made Out of Recycled Guns and Knives

Reposted in full from Inhabitat, 20 January 2010

'As the world eagerly awaits the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, London is ramping up their own construction plans for the 2012 Olympics. And we just learned this exciting little tidbit about the super sustainable Olympic Stadium currently being built there that makes us even more anxious to see it – it’s going to be made out of recycled guns and knives! That’s right, confiscated weapons from the Metropolitan Police Department are being melted down into scrap metal and used to help build the stadium. That’s an anti-weapons and recycling program all rolled into one!

In the last year, the Metropolitan Police have collected more than 52 tonnes of scrap metal from old keys, knives and guns. This valuable scrap metal is being sold for use in buildings around the city, namely the Olympic Stadium in Stratford. Populous (formerly HOK Sport) designed the eco-stadium to utilize a minimum number of materials and resources in order to have a lower environmental impact, and the recycled scrap metal is just one of those eco-elements.

The London Metropolitan Police have done an admirable job in the last year to lighten their environmental footprint and have performed environmental studies to see where improvements can be made. Interestingly, they have collected 3.3 million spent bullets, weighing about 28 tonnes and recycled them into photo frames and jewelry. Additionally, they have recycled old uniforms, including body armour, to be used in car production, as well as cooking oil and horse manure.'