A gradual rehabilitation of the wetlands is now evident at Homebush Bay. The old sea wall has been deliberately opened up, allowing the tide to flush the salt marsh and wetlands once again. Fish and crab are returning and a plant nursery has been established for rare salt marsh species that are found in this area. Today, Homebush Bay's open spaces have reached the early stages of rehabilitation, a process that will surely continue for years to come.

Sydney's Green Olympics are the talk of Toronto, the Canadian city bidding for the 2008 Olympics Games. Sydney's winning green bid set a minimum standard for environmental excellence that needed to at least be matched by new Olympic bid cities. The environmental planning invested in an Olympic bid could benefit the city even if it didn't win the Games themselves. As the bid process progresses and environmental solutions are adopted as part of the project, they can also begin to influence other areas of policy and city planning.

400,000 little volunteers are working hard at t9he Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) headquarters-all of them dedicated to the environmental effort. Unlike SOCOG's typical volunteers, these ones work 24 hours a day, can all fit within a one-and-a-half-square-metre work area, are hermaphrodites and are very, very hungry (eating up to three-quarters of their own body weight every day).

They are, in fact, worms. Living off food waste, these worms -- a mix of tiger worms and red worms-re helping SOCOG in its effort to reduce, reuse and recycle its waste. In the lead-up to the Sydney 2000 Games, the worms will chomp through tonnes of SOCOG waste, saving money on waste transport and disposal costs. The worm farm has been installed to show how the high-tech corporate world can benefit from low-tech green solutions. While upstairs, Olympic staffers tackle the complexities of staging a megadollar, global sporting event, downstairs the worms quietly get on with doing what comes naturally to them-eating.

The worm farm doesn't need daylight because the worms like the dark. And once the system has been set up, the farm is very easy to manage. Money is saved for every kilogram of waste that need not have to be sent to a landfill. It does not smell and doesn't attract mice or cockroaches because the worms eat all the waste material. At the same time, the staff can use the resulting vermicast, an excellent soil conditioner, to beautify their gardens.

Fifty per cent of the water needs of the Athletes' Village and Olympic venues will be meet by new water conservation measures. To achieve this, a dual water supply is being established. Drinking water will be freshly supplied, while storm water and sewage effluent generated at Homebush Bay will be collected and treated on-site. Water will be reclaimed from storm water treated in artificial wetlands and sewage treated in the water reclamation plant. This water will be piped to toilets and used in the irrigation of landscaped areas at Homebush Bay. Already, almost half of the site's irrigation needs are being met by recycled storm water.

Greenpeace welcomes the effort for water re-use, but is concerned about the impact it could have on the rare Green and Golden Bell Frogs now living in the open ponds that are being used for water treatments. Considerable efforts have been made to ensure the survival of the frogs, providing them with new habitats, special fences and dedicated frog bridges. Frog experts from the Australian Museum have released information showing that the Green and Golden Bell Frog population has doubled during the period of Olympic construction. The latest census estimates the population of the frog species in the ponds as between 600 and 720, as compared to the 1994 estimate of between 55 and 110.

Green vision and ideals will burn brightly in the low emission flames of the Olympic torch. The propane and butane power system will burn for 20 minutes, producing a flame that emits no smoke, can burn in strong winds (up to 65 kmph) and torrential rain. This is just as well because the Sydney 2000 Olympic Torch Relay will travel more than 27,000 kms in 100 days and pass through every state and territory in Australia. The torch uses standard pressure pack containers that can be removed so that both the gas and the container can be recycled.