The 2024 RF Events Oberun 5K took place on a perfect evening for a short run with a long recovery with beer and good food. This was great for the athletes – and a lot of work for the Green Team. But having trained all summer, my crew was up for it. (The work, not the beer.)
The back field at Wiard’s Orchards provides a large area for post-race entertainment, giving as a substantial footprint to cover. Our main station was right in its middle, with satellite stations at each entrance/exit and near the beer tables. Our team of five (Jeff and four staffers) was non-stop busy starting around 7:00 p.m., when the first finishers came in. We had just enough bandwidth to keep the stations under control and the grounds free of litter.
The calm before the storm. From left: Lucy, Debbie, Sara, Liz.
Sara handles the rush at an exit.
Main waste streams were cardboard from the finisher medals and pint glasses, boxboard from the beer cases, water bottles, snack bags, and utensils containers from the QueFellas BBQ, Simply Spanish, and Shawarma Chef food trucks. And, of course, empty beer cans, which filled four 96-gallon carts. (That’s around 2,000 cans.)
Perchance this fellow had a few before the race started?
Many thanks to the finish line and beer table crews, who broke down and consolidated the cardboard, boxboard, and plastic bags. Also many thanks to the food trucks for using mostly compostable materials. QueFellas in fact made a special trip to Bgreen Today to pick up compostable boats for their food. Very much appreciated!
One big improvement was parking the HPR trailer by the finish line, so the cardboard could be loaded directly into it, instead of piling it up somewhere and then loading it later. This saved a lot of time and effort.
As usual it took two trips to haul everything away, first for the cardboard and some recycling, and a second for the remaining waste and all the equipment. We were wrapped up at 10 p.m., an improvement from last year. We were only able to weigh the cardboard that evening, but Liz and I weighed the rest the following day at HPR HQ, along with the last-minute dropoffs we didn’t have time to sort.
Improvement ideas for next year:
- A lot of beer cans and water bottles were left in the fire pit area, which I discovered at the last minute. We could put a small station there later in the evening.
- Improve communication with the food vendors regarding which materials are best for the Zero Waste effort. Consider providing them an electronic pamphlet with all the necessary information.
Happy Planet Running 