Another great year for the Bonfyre Trail Fest. About 750 runners showed up for trail runs of 5(ish), 10(ish), and 18(ish) miles on the DTE Foundation Trails. It was a bit chilly in the morning, so I (Jeff) ran the 10-miler to keep warm. (Worked.)
An improvement from last year was a larger Zero Waste team, with staffers Sara and Liz, and volunteers Beth and Bridget, who managed things so well we got everything weighed onsite, and we were packed up and outta there nearly an hour earlier than expected. Thanks, everyone!
Sara and Beth at the station, with Liz party hidden behind Beth.
As usual the main Zero Waste station was in the party area across from the beer tent. At the exit we put All Waste boxes, one for beer cans and one for everything else. Our “Free Stuff” box with extra sweatshirts, hats, and gloves, was put near registration.
Cardboard was the largest contributor to our waste stream, coming from registration and the finish line. Thanks to the finish line staff, who brought their waste to us for most of the event. Not surprisingly, beer cans were also plentiful, filling two of our 96-gallon carts. Both materials are easily recycled and high value, so they alone make it worth the effort.
Some of the cardboard we collected throughout the event.
Food was provided by Simply Spanish and Craveable, both of whom used compostable containers, saving us a lot of work. The aid station bags, as always, required careful attention to sort out the Gu wrappers and other miscellaneous items from the waxed cups. I’ve found it’s more effective to dump the contents on the ground and sort there, rather than dig through the bags, where we often miss things.
In all, things went very smoothly, and we added another 99+ percent landfill diversion event, with only 2 lbs. of landfill. Yee-hah!
Happy Planet Running 