UEFA, Lay's Making Soccer More Accessible Around the World One Recycled Chip Bag at a Time

Today’s chip bag could be tomorrow’s soccer pitch.

Sounds crazy? UEFA and Lay’s are already making it happen around the world.

The two have joined forces to repurpose materials and have already brought accessible soccer fields to seven cities in four different continents. This comes in the midst of a major trend among corporations to prioritize sustainability and equity.

How did Lay’s RePlay Program begin?

The initiative started in Jordan at a Syrian refugee camp in 2015. Lay’s set out to build three full-sized soccer pitches, which were so successful that it sparked inspiration to expand their investment to more cities and fields. 

“This is much more than just about soccer or just about a pitch in a community,” said Ciara Dilley, Vice-President of Marketing at PepsiCo, Lay’s parent company. “It is about the power of what sport can do and bringing young people together.”

Dilley said her company specifically identifies local community partners who are dedicated to providing a safe environment and view sports as a means for mentorship and community.

“We really believe in the opportunity that these pitches get to bring young people together, to help them to socialize, to take part in activities, to take part in playing soccer, obviously,” she said.

The RePlay Program also organizes activities for the community such as sustainability drives, celebrations honoring groups such as the LGBTQ community and events for International Women’s Day.

What is the purpose of the RePlay Program?

Soccer needs little introduction on the global stage. The beautiful game as it’s often referred to is the world’s most popular sport with roughly 3.5 billion fans. 

Rather than serving as promotional or recruiting tools, these fields are designed to serve these communities for whatever purpose most relevant to their needs and interests.

“It's not to develop the next Ronaldo or the next Messi,” UEFA Foundation General Secretary Urs Kluser said. “... The clear objective of this is not to just have an infrastructure, but to have a community organization that runs the activities and also to support every project.”

To Kluser, sports have the ability to lead to personal development or open opportunities for children who otherwise never would have had a chance to play.

“It gave access to sport and activity in areas where otherwise that wouldn't be possible,” Colin Young, an expert in turf surfaces, added. 

What cities have Lay’s RePlay pitches?

Seven cities have been the beneficiary of UEFA and Lay’s partnership so far: Santa Ana, Calif.; São Paulo, Brazil; Iztapalapa, Mexico; Tembisa, South Africa; Turin, Italy; Leicester, England and most recently Cairo, Egypt.

Kluser said they have intentions of heading to Turkey next, but that has been delayed by the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in February. 

“We still want to go ahead with it also to support this community where it's even more needed than before,” he said.

How are these pitches designed specifically to their environments?

A recurring theme when discussing this program is the importance of ownership and buy-in from the community as they’re ultimately charged with maintaining the pitch on a day-to-day basis and making sure it remains a safe, accessible space. This often means finding existing organizations to partner with that share the same goals as UEFA and Lay’s. 

“But if they're ready to support this kind of activity, then we always, with our partners, try to find a good community organization who can take ownership and can guarantee the running of the facility,” Kluser said. “What we don't want is to create this white elephant. That's why it's quite a package. It's not just building a pitch.”

The UEFA Foundation for Children strives to ensure that pitches are best set up to succeed, taking into account the different environmental factors specific to each city.

Kluser said in Jordan they developed pitches relying heavily on sand infill instead of rubber.

What makes these fields sustainable?

Once inspiration struck, innovation followed. 

UEFA connected Lay’s with TenCate Grass, a company based in the Netherlands that specializes in artificial and synthetic grass. Together, they developed a safe and sustainable technique to repurpose “end of life” products.

The program converts chip packs to rubberized pellets, which are then used to create a shock-absorbing, completely recyclable layer called Ecocept. 

“The general benefit of having a shock absorbing layer is it is increasing life and improving the amount of hours of use you can get on these fields because you're allowing them to last for longer,” Young said.

TenCate Grass grinds rubber such as worn-down tires, diverting them from a landfill and repurposing the granules that are still “high performing.” They then combine that with plastic waste found in either synthetic turf or the chip bags, seeking out a perfect 50-50 split.

Collectively, each field results in an estimated 128 fewer tons of greenhouse gas emissions than the traditional synthetic field – the equivalent of removing up to 27 cars off the road for a year.

The benefits of this approach are two-fold, according to Young. Plastic’s stability and lack of density allow developers to use fewer materials without compromising the structural integrity of the field itself. Similarly, plastic’s inability to decompose is an advantage in this process because it’s not prone to degradation or sunlight. 

How long does it take to build a RePlay field?

While the time it takes to build a field varies greatly depending on the infrastructure of the location, it pales in comparison to the time and effort spent preparing before any ground is broken. 

“The construction itself actually doesn't take so long, but it's really that the big challenge is the titles of the land or the use of the land and then to get all the building permits,” Kluser said.

What other ways does this program prioritize sustainability?

The sustainability of the RePlay program extends well beyond recycled chip bags.

Dilley said they hired a consultancy firm that assessed every element of the operation and identified ways to maximize their sustainability. 

“Obviously, the use of the chip bags is one way, but everything else from lowering of [greenhouse] gas emissions, from our water usage, from just ecological disturbance of the soil and trying to minimize that every step of the way, we try to be more sustainable.”

Perhaps the most sustainable element of this initiative is the long-term foresight to make sure they remain a fixture of these communities for decades.

“In general, the pitches are estimated to last about ten years but the plan is that when they are close to ten years, they can then be recycled again and made into pitches again” Dilley said. “So it's a fully circular process, which is very exciting.”

Dilley said she’s seen a shift in the priorities at Lay’s in her eight years with the company.

“We have taken a very strong position to say that sustainability and human capital will be front and center to everything we do both now and into the future,” she said. “So our commitments start today, but obviously we have set ourselves very stretching targets for the future.”

True to the initial mission of the program, these fields are used for so much more than just soccer. Dilley said they’ve hosted educational events and forums on sustainability and focus on providing educational resources. 

“It fills our hearts with joy when we see the community lean in and use them for so much more than just soccer,” Dilley said. “... We always want to make sure that the pitches that we've launched are absolutely optimized.”

From a company-wide standpoint, Dilley added that Lay’s is always working to make their products themselves more environmentally friendly. 

“How do we get to a world where we either have recyclable or compostable biodegradable packaging?” she said. “That is a massive focus for us because that's the most important change and we have a role to play.”