We are delighted that Alban Mazars-Simon, who is part of our French team and works in Consenting and Environment, played a part in this historic tradition. Running the Olympic flame through a local village of Loudun in the country’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.
Alban was chosen by the Olympic Games in France for his love of the outdoors and his important environmental work. He studied at Edinburgh Napier University and has worked in Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands and the deep Malaysian mangroves.
Boat building to highlight the world’s plastic waste problem
His career has involved a variety of projects that have been focused on the environment. This has included working with a non-government organisation called The Sea People which aims to restore coral ecosystems off the small island community Raja Ampat in West Papua, using drones to identify damaged or destroyed places that need to be replanted or stabilised.
His latest project, still in development, is called “Des bouteilles à la mer” or “Bottles at Sea.”
Inspiration for this project came from his work on Raja Ampat, Alban said “What has shocked me the most working in remote areas is the amount of plastic waste that would drift onto the island, sometimes from thousands of kilometres away. These places have no ability to deal with the waste coming to shore, so it is either thrown back out to sea or simply burnt on the beach.”
After a few days on the Island, he had already collected enough to build a small raft that would carry his bodyweight. However, with no recycling facilities on the island, he was unable to complete the full project, so the raft ended up in landfill, which was just a partly burning unprocessed piece of land in the rain forest.
Now living in Nantes, he wants to continue his work and is in the process of building an updated version of his small sailboat out of discarded plastic with the aim to be able to sail out to sea to highlight the importance of recycling and the circular economy.
His family have always been involved with the games.
His grandfather was an Olympic sailor, his mother is currently volunteering as part of the Paris Olympic Games and his brother recently jumped into the Seine with the Parisian mayor to highlight the cleanliness of the river.
Alban remembers his first Olympics, which he attended at just 10 years old in Athens. Playing a part in the games now is surreal but fills him with a sense of pride and enthusiasm to continue his projects. He has plans to attend the Olympics opening ceremony and a variety of the games to celebrate the wonderful event.