ANZ Stadium management reveal NRL Grand Final challenge

The management team at Sydney's ANZ Stadium have revealed the challenges they will face in preparing and cleaning the venue in advance, and in the aftermath, of Sunday's NRL Grand Final.

A team of almost 100 Cleanevent staff have been sweeping, scrubing and shining this week to ensure the Stadium is spick and span ahead of the big event.

ANZ Stadium Senior Manager of Stadium Operations, Greg Sleigh explained that the preparation is a giant task with 1,200 hours required just to clean each of the Stadium's 83,000-plus seats.

Sleigh explained "if they worked around the clock, it would take two staff 12 weeks to pressure wash the seating bowl - all 43,000 metre² of it!

"Mops, vacuums and feather dusters will be out in force and standing by, ready for Sunday. (We also need to provide) about 720,000 sheets of toilet paper and almost 450,000 sheets of hand towel."

However, Sleigh adds that it is after full time when the chore really starts.

"Post-game (our) team will collect enough rubbish to fill four garbage trucks."

And while empty cups dominate the waste, it's the confetti which causes the most headaches, Sleigh stating "the confetti is a fantastic part of the post-game celebrations but it goes everywhere! We find it in some of the most unusual places and we'll often continue to find it days later."

Among the cups and confetti, some of the more unusual waste disposed of in previous years includes underwear, jewellery and false teeth.

Sleigh concludes "the NRL Grand Final is the one of, if not the biggest event on our calendar each year and (really) it's no different for the cleaning team.

"It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it!"

10th February 2010 - SPOTLESS TO BUY CLEANEVENT