It was a chilly morning in downtown Ann Arbor, but the Turkey Trot sold out, with over 4,000 people running the 5K or one-mile races. A quick snack, perhaps a visit to Santa, and then they’re outta there and we get everything cleaned up and done before noon. But the RF Events folks know what they’re doing, and it all went without a hitch.
Start of the one-mile run.
We set up the main Zero Waste station at the corner of Liberty St. and Fifth Ave., and another directly across the street, near the Bearclaw Coffee trucks Based on a lesson learned from last year (overstuffed trash can) we put another station just past the trucks. And seeing litter on Liberty at Santa’s Village near Division, we added a large All Waste box there. We also put All Waste boxes at the corner of Liberty and Fourth, covering the trash cans there.
RF provides water bottles, bananas, and chocolate chip cookies. Bearclaw Coffee gave out hot cocoa in compostable cups.
Total waste was nearly even with last year, with compostables slightly up and recycling slightly down. Landfill was just over four pounds, an increase from last year. We collected a lot of tape, fast food wrappers, and other miscellaneous stuff picked up off the street in the race area.
Holding down the fort on a chilly morning.
Just a couple of annoyances: as usual with a short race on a cold day, we ended up pouring out a lot of water from the water bottles. And several people decided the flower boxes on Liberty were good places to put their trash. Fortunately we had a large enough time to clean it up before the streets reopened.
Thanks to my great team, staffers Liz, Debbie, and Jenn, and volunteers Sue and Jean. Thanks to them we stayed on top of a busy race and a larger footprint. We even had a couple people show up to help at the end!
A proud team at the end of another successful Zero Waste event.
Happy Planet Running 