April is Earth Month, and what better way to celebrate it than with a cupless, sustainable race? Trail Marathon is just that, and Happy Planet Running has been proud to support it for the past nine years!
We had a good team this year. Along with regular staffer Liz, new intern Iki joined us for her first event, and our volunteers – one morning, two afternoon – did a great job, too.
From left: Liz, Iki, and one of our wonderful afternoon volunteers.
This year due to construction at Silver Lake the event moved to The Woodlands at Bruin Lake, where Run Woodstock and Dances with Dirt are held. Start and finish line were at one of the pavilions, making for a nice compact “footprint” for the Green Team. We set up just one station in between the finish line and the pizza truck, and near to the beer station. A couple of All Waste boxes at the finish line to collect the plastic wrap from water bottle cases, and we were all set!
Food was pizza from Little Caesar’s, along with bananas. The beer cups were also compostable, making that waste stream the largest. We also had a good bit of cardboard.
The line for pizza went right by our station, so we took advantage of that to display some statistics on how much waste we’ve processed at RF Events races, and our landfill diversion rate. We also put out a little quiz to enhance recycling knowledge.
What is Michigan’s recovery rate for its container deposit program? They now know!
The aid station bags arrived significantly later than last year – after 5:00 p.m., later than the end of our afternoon shift. I’d sent our two afternoon volunteers home, so it was just Iki and myself to deal with the bags. We did a quick sorting of the clean recyclables so I could drop them off at WWRA on the way home. The rest I sorted at home the following day. The afternoon was quiet enough that I could have done an early collection myself, which I will propose for next year.
Aid station bag quality was mixed. The race is cupless, which is fantastic, but there were still several large bags of mixed waste to sort. A couple of the aid stations made a very much appreciated effort to keep the Gu wrappers and food waste separate, while others just tossed their waste – Coke bottles, jugs, energy bar boxes, etc. – right in there with the messy stuff. It highlighted the need to fully communicate our Zero Waste program to everyone working the aid stations.
Finally, staffers Liz and Sara staffed an HPR table at the Oakland County Earth Day Festival at the Royal Oak Farmers Market. They got a lot of interest. Great job, guys!
Happy Planet Running 