Despite the capricious weather, nearly 300 volunteers worked hard to collect significant volumes of waste on the ski slopes of 11 Valais ski resorts on Saturday 25 August during the first edition of Cleaning Day, organised by the Ski Valais sports association, in partnership with Summit Foundation and the Valais ski lifts. A look back at this environmental action.
It took more than rain and cold to stop the young Valaisan athletes, their entourage, their coaches, a few ski champions including Amélie Reymond, Bastien Dayer and Loïc Meillard (present at Evolène) as well as all the volunteers. Together, from Saas Grund to Verbier via Anzère, Crans-Montana or Evolène, the 300 participants of the Cleaning Day 2018 collected a volume of waste of around 5000 litres ! It should be noted that to this collected waste, it is necessary to add a very significant number of signposts, metal sheets or even scrap metal, material necessary for the work of the ski lifts.
This event, which is intended to be an annual event in the future and an opportunity to bring together all the people involved in Ski Valais, also allowed all the young people present, at the end of the waste collection, to benefit from a visit to the Valais companies EcoBois Recyclage SA and Satom SA. During these visits, they discovered the very important work of these recycling companies and learned about the fate of the various wastes collected, some of which, for example, are recycled into energy (electricity or heat) through an incineration process.
Saturday ended for all participants on the domain of Les Iles in Sion, where, following the presentation of the Valais Trophy prizes (2017-2018 season) to deserving athletes, a raclette was offered. The weather became more forgiving again at that time, everyone was able to enjoy a beautiful evening and celebrate the next generation of skiers from Valais in the presence of Mr. Frédéric Favre, Head of the Department of Institutions, Safety and Sport in Valais and Mr. Berno Stoffel, President of the Valais ski lifts.
Pictures by Hervé Deprez, Crans-Montana