Camp Bruin in Gregory was the setting for the 30th anniversary of Dances with Dirt – Hell Edition. In addition to the relay and 50K and 50-mile ultras, they added a 30K for the occasion. It was foggy in the morning, providing a cool and mysterious start to the ultrarunners and relay teams. By noon it had burned off and become a warm afternoon.
Spooooky…
The main Zero Waste station was set up across the road from the pavilion, between the start/finish line and the ultra aid station. We swapped out boxes at the aid station as needed. We monitored the trash bin by the porta-potties and retrieved bottles and cans from it.
Morning crew: Emily and Jessica cheer on runners with cowbells and dead chickens.
At this race HPR also had a giveaway. We collected so many disposable batteries at Run Woodstock, I decided to play up rechargeable headlamps and lights. So one lucky ultrarunner got a Fenix headlamp that can run either on a rechargeable battery or regular ones. A lucky relay team each got a clip-on light that can be used as a marker (red, green, or white) and as an emergency flashlight. Congrats to Josh and to Team Hold Your Horses!
Post-race food was Little Caesars, and a Travelin’ Tom’s Coffee truck was there in the morning. Of the six 96-gallon carts I’d brought, we filled five with compostables, much of it the pizza boxes, but also compostable plates and cups as well as food waste. Oddly, even with a slight dip in attendance from 2023, total waste increased by 50%, pretty much across the board. Not sure why, unless this year’s runners were hungrier and bought more shirts.
Other significant waste streams included cardboard, beer cans and bottles (one cup of beer isn’t enough for trail runners? Shocking!), Gu wrappers, and race bibs, including the tear-off tickets for runners to claim said cup of post-race beer. We also collected 14 pairs of discarded shoes along with some socks, a shirt, and, for the first time – sports bras!
Well, it WAS Dances with Dirt XXX edition!
At this race we get a fair number of items that need rinsing before they can be recycled, such as cups from yogurt, peanut butter, and Jell-O shots. Usually I take them home to wash, but with the showers operational, I got a pail of hot water and added some dish detergent, and presto! Nice and clean. Definitely going to keep that for future years.
Many thanks to volunteers Jessica and Emily for their hard work in the morning, and to Teresa and staffer Debbie for handling the afternoon rush with me. Also many thanks to the RF crew for bringing in the aid station bags in the afternoon, allowing us to sort them before the big evening rush when the relay teams finish.
Afternoon crew: Debbie and Teresa hard at work as the aid station bags come in.
The collected waste. Landfill is the single black bag.
Improvement ideas:
- To save cart volume, we could consider tearing off the clean tops of the boxes for cardboard recycling, and putting only the greasy bottoms into the compost. We have to handle each one individually anyway, to check for contaminants like plastic, and to flatten it to maximize space.
- At the porta-potty trash bin, put a “NO CAMP WASTE” sign like was done at Run Woodstock, and/or put a large All Waste box there so we don’t have to pick out bottles and cans from the paper towels.
Happy Planet Running 