This weekend (Nov 18 to 20th) is the 18th annual the Philadelphia Marathon. As this major event is reaching the age of its legal majority, organizers are announcing a series of initiatives to make the event more sustainable.
Melanie Johnson, the Executive Director of the race clearly stated her intentions when she said: “Each year, we are implementing green initiatives that both reuse resources and recycle materials which make our race weekend more efficient and eco-friendly.”
The size of the crowd
This is no small feast since the Philadelphia Marathon attracts close to 100, 000 people, that is: 27,000 runners, more than 60,000 fans and 3,000 volunteers. Multiple times I have had the occasion to run or bike on the Parkway during or after a race, whether it is the Race for the Cure, the Race for Hope (Brain Cancer Society) or anyone of the multiple races and events that take place on the Philadelphia Art Museum loop. Every time I notice empty water bottles, orange peels, hundreds of empty “GU Energy Gel” aluminum pockets, aluminum cans, plastic wrappers, lost objects strewn about.
The Philadelphia Marathon organization as mentor for other Citywide events
I find very encouraging that the organizers of the Philadelphia Marathon are taking the lead in making their event more sustainable. Could the organizers of the dozens of other events that use the street of Philadelphia get inspired by the Philadelphia Marathon example? Would the Philadelphia Marathon organizers accept to mentor their colleagues who are organizing these other events throughout the year?
In addition to all the efforts of the organizers to make their event more sustainable, what if the organizers would setup a game to invite and reward people attending the event to make sustainable choices?
Philadelphia Marathon Green Initiatives
Below are green initiatives that the Philadelphia Marathon organizers are doing to both subtly and aggressively reduce waste, reuse resources and recycle materials:
Heatsheets®, which are made of a metalized polyester film and distributed to warm up the runners at the finish line, will be collected in designated containers and recycled.
Materials from excess runners’ medals will be melted down and recycled in a waste-cutting measure.
The more than 300,000 cups that runners use during the races to drink water and replacement fluids will be collected and composted.
Recycling and composting bins will be set up at the marathon’s two-day Health and Fitness Expo and on the race course at fluid stations and other designated areas.
Recycled cardboard and plastics will be used on the race course.
Thousands of runners discard their outer layers of warm-up clothing at the starting line, so the Philadelphia Marathon Race Weekend organizers partner with the Bethesda Project, a local organization that assists the homeless population, to collect more than two hundred 55-gallon bags of salvageable clothing each year.
Excess runners’ bags will be recycled, reused or donated and the items within the bags are recycled or donated to local running clubs, school groups and charity organizations.
The paper size of informational handouts has been reduced by 50 percent.
Registration for the Marathon, Half Marathon, and Rothman Institute 8K is accessible through the Philadelphia Marathon’s website. Marathon organizers continued to strongly encourage participants to sign up online, at times offering online discounts and distributing specials via e-cards rather than through paper mailings. This increased the percentage of online registration from 88 percent in 2008 to 97 percent in 2010.
A Waste Watchers team will help spectators and participants sort their trash, recycling, and compost into the right containers, keeping the streets of Philadelphia clean and welcoming, and reducing the amount of trash the races send to the landfill.
For more information about how the Philadelphia Marathon is going green, visit the Philadelphia Marathon website at http://www.philadelphiamarathon.com/green-initiative.
