The RF Events Turkey Trot in downtown Ann Arbor on Thanksgiving morning is something like a “here and gone” event. I arrived at 6:30 a.m. to set up, the runners were off at 8:30, and we were packed up and outta there at 10:45, with Liberty Street clean and open to traffic like nothing had happened! But over 4,000 people showed up to run the one-mile and 5K, and they generated trash we had to manage quickly and responsibly.
The kids run before the main event. Gotta LOVE that enthusiasm!
Running a 5K in that? All I can say is, Wow. Kudos.
We set up the main Zero Waste station at the corner of Liberty St. and Fifth Ave., close to the Bearclaw Coffee trucks. Registration and the awards area were one block further east, and they brought us their waste at the close of the event.. We covered city trash cans along Liberty between Fifth and the start/finish line at Fourth Ave. and put unattended All Waste boxes near Fleet Feet at Fourth. We tried out a larger size All Waste box in a couple places, which worked well.
For finishers, RF provided water bottles, bananas, and chocolate chip cookies. The water bottles came in two sizes, regular and half-size, which I prefer because there’s less volume and less wasted water we have to pour out. Bearclaw Coffee gave out hot cocoa in compostable cups.
All went well, and we were packed up on time. I did some final sorting and the weighing after the event. Total waste was up from last year, but so was attendance – a 33 percent increase – and waste totals were more in line with 2021 and 2019. I think in 2022 we didn’t process the aid station cups, which would explain a large part of the dip in total waste that year.
None of my interns or staffers could make it, but I had three great volunteers in regulars Bridget and her son Andrew, and Brenda, who also helped out here last year. In addition to staffing the main station, they swapped out the boxes at Fourth and Liberty, and picked up cups and bottles left in the finish area. Many thanks as well to the RF crew, who saved us time and effort by bringing us empty cardboard boxes from medals and food.
Brenda hard at work at our station.
The only hiccup was at Fifth and Liberty, on the other side of the coffee trucks. The trash can there, which I hadn’t expected to get much use, was stuffed full, and assorted trash littered the area. I took the entire contents to sort later. Lesson learned – next time, put a station there. But a diversion rate of over 99 percent is nothing to complain about!
Happy Planet Running 