It’s fall once again, which means apple cider, donuts, pumpkins, and football. The RF Events Scrumpy Skedaddle at Almar Organic Orchards took care of the first three, with some running before football watching began. And with 5K, 10K, and 10-mile options, you could have all the running you wanted, followed by food and live music.
The kids kick things off with a 1K run. Gotta be the first to those pancakes!
Chris Cakes was there as usual, serving pancakes to the finishers, flinging them onto people’s plates .The inevitable misses meant the Green Team regularly patrolled that area to keep the ground clean. And the orchard provided mugs of their sweet cider or JK Scrumpy hard cider.
I placed the main Zero Waste Station at the exit of the post-race area, although I moved it to the center instead of to the side, to allow for better access and visibility. A Zero Waste box was placed at the entrance to the building serving cider, as usual, and added an unstaffed station a little past the finish line. With regular policing and swapping out, this kept a lot of water bottles out of the orchard’s trash cans. I also put two All Waste boxes at the starting line and retrieved them after the final race started.
For this event the plates and utensils are compostable, and syrup is pumped from jugs or bottles, which makes waste collection much easier and eliminates the need to wash or rinse. The cider was served in waxed paper cups, so quick rinses were required for some of those.
I had no available interns so I was a bit concerned about being shorthanded, but I had three great volunteers in Jillian, Laura, and David, who smoothly handled the rush and helped me weigh most of the waste. I even had time to eat a few pancakes and grab a mug of the orchard’s incredible hard cider.
Hard at work! Hey, where’s Jeff?
Uhh…warm day, gotta stay hydrated!
And thanks again to the finish line volunteers, who broke down and stacked the cardboard from the boxes of finisher glasses, and collected plastic wrap from medals and cases of water bottles. They even brought it all to the main station at takedown!
Total waste was up about 10 percent from last year, but we achieved near zero landfill, thanks in part to no broken pint glasses. I did end up with six glasses, which will be donated to a thrift shop.
Last year we gave 25 lbs. of food waste to the orchard’s pigs, much of which came from tossed pancakes that ended up on the ground. This year the food total was 39 lbs. Not sure if that was more misses, or people not eating all the pancakes they caught. Either way, it went to feed animals or become compost instead of going to landfill and adding to greenhouse gases. So that’s a win!
Happy Planet Running 