Protect Your Playground : 2008 : November

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Protect Your Playground

November 2008

N.C. Marathon Going Green for 2009

Posted by Active Giselle Nov 21, 2008

Race organizers for the North Carolina Marathon in Greensboro are making a very conscious effort to go green next year, according to this recent article. From more recycling to email-only communication, it definitely looks like they are doing their best to stay on top of greening efforts.

The article also talked about interesting changes at other races-- from bamboo shirts handed out at the Portland Marathon to the 2,000-gallon water fountain at the ING Hartford Marathon that eliminated the need for 10,000 plastic bottles.

What do you guys think about all this? Do you have any other ideas on ways directors can green their races?

524 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: races, marathons, protect-your-playground, going_green, recycling

Preliminary Findings Of Pilot Heatsheets Recycling Program

Posted by Jesse@Active Nov 17, 2008

Tests at six fall marathons reinforce the need for well-planned, comprehensive waste recovery efforts at all running events.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 31, 2008, Petaluma, CA: AFMInc founder and CEO David Deigan announced today the preliminary results of his company's recently concluded pilot project for recycling Heatsheets-on-a-Roll™ finish line and aid-station heat-reflective plastic blankets.

Six marathons of various sizes, representing a wide range of U.S. recycling markets, were selected from AFMInc's Heatsheets customer base to participate in this pilot project, including: the Portland Marathon, October 5th in Portland, OR; the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon, October 5th in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN; the ING Hartford Marathon, October 11th in Hartford, CT; the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon, October 12th from Schenectady to Albany, NY; the IMT Des Moines Marathon, October 19th in Des Moines, IA; and the Nike Women's Marathon, October 19th in San Francisco, CA.

"Our original intent was just to develop guidelines for running events for recycling their film plastic waste," said Deigan. "But, it quickly became apparent that no single recycling effort should be undertaken without taking into account an event's overall waste recovery objectives, opportunities and plans.

One of the key lessons we learned is that recycling at events, as a whole, requires a behavioral change in participants, which is one of the challenges. As a result, rather than restricting our post-pilot recommendations and informational materials to film plastic recycling, we'll be developing a comprehensive waste management primer for our clients and other interested race directors. Our timeframe for making that available, free of charge from our Web site, remains the first of the year."

"Even though our recovery rates ranged from 4% to 58%, I'd have to call our effort successful across the board," Deigan added. "The lessons we learned, particularly from the races where we did not collect a significant quantity of Heatsheets, will allow us to move forward to the next step in the process--developing general guidelines for races that will enable them to recycle our product and other recyclable race materials more effectively."

Two events, the ING Hartford Marathon and the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon, recovered 58% and 46% of the Heatsheets distributed at their finish lines, respectively. The ING Hartford is widely recognized as one of the "greenest" road races in America. The Heatsheets recovery effort at the Medtronic Twin Cities was spearheaded by Jon Stein of Consolidated Container Company, a man focused on finding markets for the category 3 through 6 recyclable plastics that traditional waste management companies struggle to segregate and reprocess. Given the personal commitment of Jon Stein and Beth Shluger, the ING Hartford Race Director, the successful recovery of Heatsheets at these two events was to be expected.

What wasn't anticipated was the wide range of variables that impacted recovery efforts at the other four pilot events: weather, location of waste and recycling bins within the post-finish line area, signage and communication with volunteers, runners and haulers.

The "keepsake factor" of some of the printed Heatsheets also appeared to impact the runners' willingness to recycle the product. In the case of the Nike Women's Marathon, for example, the vast majority of runners were seen leaving the Finish Village proudly wearing their Heatsheets, on a cool, overcast day. While the recovery rate of only 4% in San Francisco may seem trivial, the attempt to recover every unwanted Heatsheet was well worth the effort--practically all of the Heatsheets discarded at the event were recycled.

AFMInc wishes to thank all six events that took part in the pilot project. Each of these events is playing a vital role in the nascent movement to make U.S. running events, large and small, more environmentally friendly.

Over the next couple of months, AFMInc and Eco-Logistics will thoroughly review what was learned at each of the six pilot events, before publishing detailed recycling protocols to address the opportunities and challenges running events of all sizes will face as they develop programs for recycling film plastics. In addition Deigan and Keith Peters, of Eco-Logistics, will be speaking at gatherings of race directors in Washington D.C., New York City and Hollywood, Florida this fall.

Recycling protocols should be available by the end of the year on www.heatsheets.com. There will be no charge for the PDF format document, and events will not need to be a customer of AFM to download the information. Upcoming events that are interested in implementing their own Heatsheets recycling program should contact David Deigan.

For more information about the Heatsheets recycling pilot project, contact Keith Peters at (307) 690.6803, or Keith@Eco-Logistics.biz. David Deigan can be reached at (415) 254.8240 or DDeigan@afminc.com.

501 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: running, marathon, recycle, heatsheets

Doubt Pours over Safety of Water Bottles

Posted by Laura Hilts Nov 6, 2008

Many of us know that the number one way to protect our environment is to recycle, and the best way to protect our health is to control what enters our bodies.

Simple enough, right?

Maybe not. According to a study published by the Clean Air Council (http://www.cleanair.org/), Americans dispose of 2.5 million water bottles each hour. Since the average disposable plastic bottle takes thousands of years to decompose, many environmentally aware consumers have turned to reusable bottles in an effort to shrink our landfills.

These bottles save space in local landfills and help encourage proper hydration since consumers can monitor their daily water consumption. However, a debate has begun to brew over these containers- not because of the safety of what goes into the bottle but the bottle itself.

Polycarbonate plastic (PC) is the material which most reusable water bottles are made of. This type of material is popular because of its adaptability to hot and cold, strong composition, and resistance to odor retention. The health concerns rise from the presence of a hormone-disrupting chemical in the plastic, known as bisphenol-A (BPA).

Many tests have been conducted to determine the safety of these bottles. A study published by Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) in 2003 states that the initial amount of BPA in a new bottle decreases dramatically after a short period of use. Unfortunately, the study found that with continuous washings the BPA released increased significantly over time. The EHP concluded that, "the increased migration levels may be due to polymer degradation."

In order to determine if your bottle falls into this category, simply look for the recycling symbol, which is stamped on the bottom of the container. If it is marked with a "7", the bottle contains polycarbonate plastic properties.

Single-use water bottles are also suspected to hold a high level of probable carcinogens, due to the use of polyethylene terephthatlate (PET), which gives these bottles their pliability. This type of plastic has been proven to expunge DEHP (Bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate) after repeated uses, and can harbor bacteria in their crevices.

On October 29^th, 2008, the FDA backpedaled on previous claims that they had made about the safety about these bottles. They admitted to finding that certain topics were "not well explored" and concluded that there might be substantial linkage between BPA can and negative changes in neurobehavior and hormone levels, as well as the development of cancer.

Many consumer advocacy groups claim that these bottles are safe, but neighbor to the north, Canada, recently became the first country to boycott the use of BPA in consumer goods.

If you find yourself reaching for a soda in a frenzied attempt to avoid these bottles, you can protect your health and the environment by using reusable bottles made of glass, stainless steel, or aluminum.