This year’s Hightail to Ale 5K was another crazy busy but smooth experience for the Zero Waste team. With over 1,000 runners finishing and reaching for their free beer in a short period of time, we had to be on our toes.
Did someone say, “Free Beer?”
Like last year, we put our main station in the parking lot that held the beer and the band, and satellite stations at the two “No Beer Past Here” boundaries on Atwater Street. Each satellite station had a 96-gallon cart and two large All Waste boxes, which we swapped out when full.
The brewery also set up a table where they sold extra beer. I spotted one of their staff hauling cardboard to the dumpster and brought over a cart to capture it. We also gave them an All Waste box, which they promptly turned into a cooler. No problem, it was clean at the time!
We ended up with three 96-gallon carts full of cans, along a lot of water bottles and lots of cardboard, the latter two going into the onsite 10-yard recycling dumpster. Cardboard accounted for half the total waste by weight, with beer cans second at around 24 percent. Compost included pizza boxes, items from the Simply Spanish food truck (all compostable), and banana peels.
Iki keeps up with the beer prep team!
Knowing what was coming around 7:00, we broke down and weighed the pint glass cardboard ahead of time, along with the boxes holding the beer cans. It was all in the dumpster before the rush hit, which was a big help as our five-person crew was fully occupied for the next hour and a half. But things went smoothly, with just a couple of dives into the beer can carts to pull out snack bags and water bottles. Also, handling the water bottles is annoying because we have to empty out a lot of them, and they account for the largest amount of litter we pick up.
So you ran 3.1 miles but can’t walk 20 yards to throw away your water?
But really nothing to complain about, especially with less than a pound going to landfill. Thanks to staffers Liz and Iki, and volunteers Elizabeth and Theo for their hard work!
Happy Planet Running 