The 50th anniversary of the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run this year achieved a couple of sustainability milestones, appropriate for the special year:
- A new low in landfill with only 15.4 pounds out of 1,589 lbs. total waste processed
- A new high in our landfill diversion rate, reaching 99 percent!
And all this with attendance up 33 percent from last year, a post-pandemic high of over 4,100 runners.
Waste streams included:
- Cardboard, plastic wrap and tissue paper from the finisher medals;
- Recyclable cups from the finish line and beer area;
- Food waste (bagels, watermelon, oranges, bananas) and pizza boxes from the food tents;
- Specialty items such as Gu wrappers, race bibs, small plastics, snack bags, and vinyl tablecloths, which went to TerraCycle.
Our single bag of landfill consisted of tape, diapers, contaminated plastic, laminated paper, and other items we couldn’t process.
Setup
We set up two stations on Main Street between the finish line and the food tents. We also set up a station in the beer area, both to collect waste and provide a place to pour unfinished beer. We covered City trash cans in the race area and placed All Waste boxes on top, which one of our volunteers faithfully patrolled and swapped out.
HPR Staffer Lucy managing the very busy beer area.
Good Things!
The race provided strong support to its Green Team, providing us with 14 compost carts and 20-yard recycling dumpster from Unlimited Recycling, up from 12 carts and a 10-yard dumpster in 2023. Thank goodness, because with over 1,000 more runners this year, we used all the carts and nearly filled the dumpster. And finish line water was provided via Water Monsters and paper cups, eliminating the inconvenience (to us) of half-filled disposable water bottles.
And like last year, the race organizers used Hiccup Earth reusable cups at the aid stations, so we avoided a big load of bags of disposable cups. While sorting the remaining aid station waste was a messy job (we retrieved 31 pounds of Gu wrappers for TerraCycle), it was a far easier job than in previous years.
One big improvement over last year was how we handled the medals packaging. Instead of big bags of plastic bags, plastic strapping, and tissue paper all mixed together, we gave them a container for each, so it was all sorted when we picked them up. Hooray!
We were a bit worried that the Green Team would be understaffed this year, but enough folks showed up to make things run smoothly during the post-race rush and do an efficient job sorting in the afternoon. Many thanks to my staffers Rachael, Lucy, and Emma, the volunteers (Dave, Randy, and others), and especially my visiting daughter Rachel, who jumped in at my last-minute request!
The morning Green Team (Rachel leaning on me)
Afternoon sorters hard at work.
Challenges
As always with a large downtown race, we had a few. People decided a small City trash can was still “open” when we’d covered it over, so we had some cleanup to do there. And someone in the food area decided he’d be “helpful” by dumping mixed waste into a Food Waste Only cart, which we had to sort out. And there was a lot of litter left on the ground and on half walls, which we collected at the end.
There was quite a lot of tiny “tabs” torn off race bibs for runners to get their pizza and cups of beer. These tabs naturally blew everywhere when the wind kicked up, and they got mixed in with the disposable gloves, meaning I spent a lot of time picking them all back out. Improvement suggestion: Next time, mark off the tabs with a Sharpie.
The Wrap-Up
While this event is always well organized and put on, making it sustainable is especially worth bragging about. With a landfill diversion rate of 99 percent, it continues to be a world-class level Zero Waste event.
Happy Planet Running 