Zero Waste 2026: 114,071 children, 144 events and one shared goal – playing for our planet

From the first day of the 30th season to the International Finals in Split, Zero Waste brought education and sport together in all five member countries of the Plazma Youth Sports Games.

In 2026, Zero Waste was held at 144 events, with 114,071 children taking part in its activities in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia and North Macedonia.

The jubilee 30th season of the Plazma Youth Sports Games began with Zero Waste. In January, the very first event of the season in Velika Gorica (Croatia) opened with the Zero Waste – Be Part of the Game – Let’s Protect Our Planet programme, setting the tone for the whole year. Over the following months, Zero Waste travelled across the region, and this season it was held in all member countries of the Games for the first time, including North Macedonia.

Zero Waste was launched in 2022 together with our partners from Coca-Cola, as part of Coca-Cola’s initiative Recycle me. Give me a new life. The idea is simple: to bring together knowledge and play, education and sport. Together we collect packaging waste, and together we create a healthier environment, starting on the sports fields where children spend their time.

Children learn through play. Each Zero Waste activity starts with an interactive quiz, where children find out why waste sorting matters, which packaging can be recycled and how a used bottle or can gets a new life. Then the knowledge goes straight onto the field. On a special obstacle course, children compete in a relay race, sorting waste into the right containers while dribbling a ball. In this way they learn about recycling and practise their motor skills at the same time.

The teams are always mixed, with boys and girls competing together, and that is at the heart of Zero Waste. Every child has a role in the team, and success depends on everyone working together. Beyond the competition, Zero Waste is about friendship, togetherness and inclusion, values that the Plazma Youth Sports Games have promoted for 30 years.

Zero Waste also matters for the communities where the Games take place. Through these activities, children become aware that they are responsible for the environment in which they live: their school yard, their neighbourhood, their town. They bring this awareness home to their families and friends, and it is often the children who remind adults to sort their waste.

The story did not end with the national events. At the International Finals in Split, we extended Zero Waste with the Become a Green Ambassador quiz on the Prokurative, where young athletes from all five countries tested their knowledge of recycling and environmental protection.

In sport, every move on the field matters. It matters just as much when we play for our planet.