Another beautiful day for the RF Events Liberty Run at Heritage Park in Canton. With a 5K, 10K, the “slam” (do both), and even a one-mile fun run, there’s something for everyone, including being able to enjoy the weekend-long Liberty Fest held at the park. Adults of appropriate age could even use their race bibs to get a free beer.
The Zero Waste station was set up near the finish line as usual, where most people hung out watching the finishers come in or waiting for results. The tent with the post-race food was a bit farther away than usual – on the other side of the registration tent – so we put a couple of All Waste boxes there and swapped them out as needed.
Waste streams were the usual cardboard from boxes of T-shirts and pint glasses, banana peels, snack bag wrappers, water bottles, and cups from the aid stations, with a few specialty items like disposable gloves and “to go” coffee boxes.
The total waste generated was nearly identical to 2022, with compostables up a bit and recycling down a bit. However, there were 200 more athletes, so our waste per runner set a new low. Since 2016, when we started tracking that metric, it’s been cut nearly in half! Making certain swag items optional extras has contributed by cutting down on packaging, with the added benefit of not distributing things to people they may not really want.
There was one annoying item: There was quite a bit of litter in the race area when we arrived to set up. In one spot some family had left food wrappers, two used diapers, and some religious literature (?). We cleaned it up, as our Zero Waste doctrine is to leave a place cleaner than we found it. Since it wasn’t race-related, we didn’t include it in the totals.
On the positive side, we once more achieved the “single baggie o’ trash,” held by HPR staffer Connor in the picture below.
And what better event to do that? Seems to me “freedom from trash” ought to be a right guaranteed in the Constitution. Who wants to sponsor that amendment?
Happy Planet Running 