Show Me Your Bottle!

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run free Apr 2017 4:09pm, 22 Apr 2017 3,019 posts	0 run free So I quoted to the BBC @ 200,000 bottles will be discarded on London marathon day......However the Mirror reported 750,000 water bottles + 149,100 Lucozade bottles will be available on Sunday for @ 50,000 runners. We know that is a pretty typical figure for the number of runners each year. In 2014, the Westminster Council said they recycled @50,000 bottles from the London marathon westminster.gov.uk In 2016, ITV reported that the London Marathon recycled 40,000 bottles: itv.com The numbers don't add up. The clue in the Westminster Council report is that it will be burned. That could potentially mean 800,000 plastic bottles sitting on the wall.....(to go up in smoke or sent to China/Indonesia) So the campaign for this month and May is to encourage runners to BYOB and to #ShowMeYourBottle in exchange for seeds. For details see tyrelady.wordpress.com
Fierce and Fearless Fleecy Apr 2017 6:56pm, 22 Apr 2017 34,228 posts	0 Fierce and Fearless Fleecy But VLM goes through more than one borough...Have you actually asked them? I agree though, water bottles or cups are problematic for all the races throughout the UK. Cups might be even worse because polystyrene isn't recyclable like bottles are, but they're cheap.
Surrey Phil Apr 2017 9:14pm, 22 Apr 2017 1,935 posts	0 Surrey Phil There have been images over the past few years of families walking off with packs of water bottles. Some reports suggested thieves, some said that they were left over. Bottles tend to be preferred by runners to cups providing they are not a tripping hazard. Brighton reverted from bottles to pouches and then to cups in order to avoid wastage. This has worked well to a degree but water stations with cups tend to be slower with runners trying to avoid spillage, something that you don't get with bottles. However, you sometimes get a full cup at one station and then very little at the next. I usually bring my own bottle for the first few miles of a race so to avoid congestion at the early water stations and then use the water/isotonic drink stations from about mile 8 onwards when they're less crowded.
run free Apr 2017 12:12am, 23 Apr 2017 3,020 posts	0 run free Attended a Green London event (2010) that the councils attend &they indicated at the time that the amount of "recycling" volume is way too much for them to handle. With it being shipped off to China/indonesia to be "handled" (landfilled) Also there are plastic bottles that will be taken away from the event & those bottles might be dumped. What else do we know - the "surplus" gets burned in Southwark....don't know how much. .....and we know about the Plastic Ocean, depleting oil resources, plastics take many hundred years to degrade, Fish eating plastics, etc etc etc And there are alternatives to Plastic that are biodegradable and compostable. So really think London marathon organisers have been green washing everyone for years. And there are many runners that think outside of the "PB" and think about the "OBE" (Our Best for the Environment) after all it is relatively easy to reduce plastic by BYOBing. Spoke to a guy who is a 3 hour marathon runner and BYOB's who said having a break helps & doesn't think it makes much difference carrying a bottle with regards to time. Many Italian events will even let you set up bottles at various check points like the elites and have jugs available for you to fill your bottles. Pretty easy to do.