Guess who just got back today? Those wild-eyed marathoners who’d been away…
For the first time in many years, the Ann Arbor Marathon started and finished in the heart of downtown. Energy was high, both from runners and from spectators who paused their shopping and dining to cheer them on. Runners had the option of the full marathon, half marathon, 10K, 5K, and even a half-marathon walking option. Attendance, at 2,000, was nearly back at pre-pandemic levels, a really good sign.
This is fun! Right, girls?
We set up our main Zero Waste Station in the post-race vendor area near the food tables. I decided to limit the street “footprint” to the intersection just after the finish line (Ashley and Washington Streets) and covered the city trash cans there. We put out some All Waste boxes and a larger one near the finish line, and swapped them out periodically throughout the day.
Prashanth, Connor, and Becca, the morning team at Ground Zero.
Epic Races likes to provide a variety of post-race food, including egg & cheese wraps, pancakes, bananas, and cookies, and the ever-popular ice cream cart. New this year was bags of popcorn. New this year was the addition of Water Monsters at the finish line and by the food tent, which allowed the race to completely eliminate single-use plastic bottles. The result was that compostables became the majority of the race waste!
Just between you and me, I don’t think Water Monsters are all that scary.
Again this year we used compostable cups at the finish line and at all the aid stations. We still got a number of coffee shop cups as we were downtown, but they were easily sorted out. Additionally we used compostable plates and utensils for the pancakes, as well as the popcorn bags. One of the vendors also served fruit and other snacks, and I replaced their plastic forks with compostable sporks.
As our aid station sorting has been highly variable, this year the staff took special care to instruct the crews to sort the bags of cups to remove Gu wrappers and other contamination. And most of the bags were well sorted, needing just a little attention from our finish line team. Here are some action shots!
The aid station bags arrived late in the day due to a truck breakdown, but we had a strong team of HPR staff and volunteers from the Michigan Community Scholars Program, who sorted and weighed them in record time. I dropped it all off at the composting farm the next day without any extra work!
Great work, team!
Lessons for next year: assuming we remain downtown, we should have a staffed Zero Waste station near the finish line, as there was quite a bit of litter – abandoned cups and such – in the race area. And we need to make it very visible so people can see it at the busiest times.
Also, we’d really like to get the aid station waste bags earlier, so we’ll be rethinking the process. Perhaps the Green Team can pick those up instead of relying on the same team who breaks down the stations at the end.
Our overall result of 96.7 percent waste recovery (composted and recycled) was just a tad lower, as our landfill was a bit higher, likely due to extra attendance and warm weather. The major contributors were the usual suspects of plastic and foil with food stuck to it, ice cream wrappers, and wet wipes.
King of the mountain of compostables! That’s 3.5 cubic yards and over four hundred pounds dropped off from the marathon.
Overall, another success for sustainability!
Happy Planet Running 