On a more serious note, we had yet another successful trash run.  Nearly 20 volunteers (ages 8 – 40) came together to run for trash and prevent recyclable material from going into a landfill. We estimate that 75% of the event’s waste was recycled.  One of our best performances yet!

While the volunteers were instrumental in making this happen, the race organizers took many steps to make our jobs all that much easier.  Being the inaugural event for RunTerra, the number of runners was relatively small–about 250.  But having managed the waste for similarly sized events, the RunTerra organizers did a great job of reducing the waste generated by the event through smart choices made during the planning process.  By far the best way they were able to reduce waste was by handing out reusable bottles of water at the end of the race instead of bottled water.  (One of the biggest sources of waste at most races is plastic bottles.  The scary thing is, most of the time they do not get recycled.)

In addition to reducing their material usage (remember reduce is the first and most important of the 3 Rs), they took some other steps to make for a much less impactful race.  Some of our favorites:

• Recyclable cups (paper with no waxy lining) at the aid stations
• A tree planted in honor of every participant and volunteer
• Attaching the race to an environmental expo for participants to learn other ways to live a more environmentally responsible life

Was everything perfect?  Well no, but sustainability is a journey not a destination. The organizers of the race did a great job of creating the framework for a less impactful event.

Before closing, I want to do one of the more enjoyable parts of trash running, unveiling the new terminology developed while engaging in the sport.  Here are a few more to add to your trash running vocabulary:

• Trashlek – Much like its “cleaner” cousin the Fartlek, the Trashlek is a great aerobic training technique.  It involves a light jog to a piece of trash and then a hard-paced sprint to put the trash in the appropriate receptacle.  A moving retrofitted trash collecting jog stroller or stationary trashcan does the trick.  This is a great substitute for boring and less environmentally beneficial track workouts.
• Dumpster Break – A bathroom break while trash running.  No explanation needed.
• Getting Trashed – Any injury that occurs while trash running, especially one that involves hand, arm or knee contact with the ground.  A very common one is clipping your foot on a guardrail and taking a digger while returning to the road or path after going deep for a piece of trash.

As always, keep it clean!

On top of all of that, we took part in our first official event on Saturday, July 26 in Portland, ME. Atayne was one of the sustainability sponsors of the Zone Urban Epic (ZUE). Atayne’s participation was not your typical “plaster your logo on everything” sponsorship. No, we decided to get a bit more creative in our visibility and simultaneously do something positive for the environment.

Will Run 4 Trash

While the ZUE entrants ran for pride, glory, and accomplishment, Team Atayne ran for trash and a cleaner environment. Following closely behind the race participants on the course, Team Atayne collected trash of all types to leave the course even cleaner than the ZUE athletes found it. Additionally, through an innovative partnership with upcycling firm TerraCycle, we had collection stations for energy bar wrappers, nutritional gel packs, swim caps, polyester-based sports apparel, bottles and cans, and more. What did we do with all this so-called trash? Not send it to a landfill! Working with TerraCycle, Atayne will use as many of those “trashed” materials to make eco-friendly products ranging from tote bags and purses to sports apparel and shoes.

Overall, Atayne’s particaption in ZUE was a great success. We made some new friends for Atayne and collected over 100 lbs of trash from the second segment of the run course (just 3 miles)! For me, it was a rather startling load and yet another wake-up call for the problem we have with waste in our society. (See my June 5 blog for more.)

Team Atayne

These results would not have been possible without the help of some incredible volunteers. A group of 5 college students/recent grads dedicated their weekend to picking up trash. There was nothing glorious in it for them: just a free shirt and the knowledge that they did something good for the environment.

The evening before the event, Mike and I decided to provide them with a small monetary incentive. But instead of straight pay, we set it up as a competition. Might as well get into the competitive spirit of the event. We would split the group into two teams. The team that collected the most garbage would win $100. Not a ton of money, but enough to get the competitive juices flowing.

Instantly upon announcing the competition, it was on. The teams divided, and the “trash” talk began. Mike and I sat back and smiled as a group of 21 to 22 year olds got excited about the prospect of picking up trash.

Saturday morning we were out at the event bright and early. While setting up, Mike and I talked about how once the collection was over we would help the teams sort what was collected and educate them on what can be reused or recycled and what must be thrown away. This would be a great opportunity to educate this young group on being good environmental stewards.

Back From the Run

Later that morning when the group, led by Mike, returned from their collection run they were all a bit sweaty but all were smiling ear to ear. They dropped the 9 completely full bags of trash at my feet and joyfully started telling me about their run. After several minutes they stopped, and I asked, “Okay, but who won?”

One of them quickly answered, “Who won? No one won. We all joined forces.”

This caught me by surprise, and I then noticed Mike smiling at me. On a day when we thought we would be teachers, we turned out to be the students. Without saying anything, our young volunteers reminded us that when it comes to saving our planet, we are all on the same team.

Memorial Day weekend I went out for a great trail run with a college buddy, Mike. We did about 14 miles of running and another 2 miles of hiking through the Difficult Run Trail and Great Falls Park. Everything about the run was near perfect. I was with my best friend and away from the hustle of Washington DC. The weather was in the high 60s to low 70s, and there was plenty of shade to keep us cool. We got off track a couple times (some might call it lost), but that only added to the adventure. Had we been wearing Atayne apparel it would have been absolutely perfect (sorry, that will be the only bit of shameless self promotion in this post).

Besides reminding me that I need to get off the pavement and spend more time on the trails, the run once again opened my eyes to an issue that is often easy to overlook – trash.

As we were walking back to my car at the end of our run, Mike shouted from behind me, “What are you doing?!?” Not understanding what he was talking about I turned around and noticed him pointing at a discarded empty beer can. He continued, “What? Are you going to walk right by it?”

For any of you who know me this may come as a surprise. I am often accused (with good reason) of getting a tad preachy about environmental issues and have been called an organic food snob (something I am proud of). But here I was getting called out. I turned around, picked up the can, and put it in a small pocket of the CamelBak I was wearing.

The rest of the walk to the car, Mike and I continued to pick up glass and plastic bottles and aluminum cans. In a short distance, we had picked up 6 cans, 4 plastic bottles, and 1 glass bottle. Unfortunately, these 11 items are a fraction of what we had to leave behind because we could not carry them all.

I think we can all agree that littering is not a good thing. It has the “amazing” ability to turn beautiful landscapes into cluttered messes. However, some of the biggest consequences of littering are ones that we don’t even see. Consider a few things.

Recycling is a very easy way to save energy. Take the 6 aluminum cans we picked up and recycled. By recycling those cans we saved the amount of energy it takes to run a TV set for 24 hours. That is also the energy equivalent of 3 gallons of gasoline. In the US alone, we throw away almost 60 billion aluminum cans per year. So we are essentially wasting the energy equivalent of 30 billion gallons of gas: this is the amount of fuel that 60 million cars use in one year.

Now think about the plastic. I am not even going to address the energy savings. I think I already got my point across above (remember – plastic comes from petroleum). What do you think would happen to the plastic bottles if we had not picked them up? Yes, someone else might have, but more likely rain would have washed them into Difficult Run, a small stream in northern Virginia. They would have flowed into the Potomac River, the Chesapeake Bay, and then the Atlantic Ocean. Then what? Out of sight, out of mind. Right?

The plastic would have broken up into smaller pieces during its journey. Some unsuspecting bird may then have mistaken it for food. Take a look at the stomach contents of just one albatross that made this mistake (Image taken from Shifting Baselines). Or it may have gotten caught up in ocean currents and made its way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area of trash in the Pacific Ocean with a size estimate that varies from the size of Texas to double that of the continental United States.

This is scary and somewhat depressing stuff, but I hope at this point you don’t feel hopeless. Yes, this could be a big challenge. But with every challenge comes the opportunity for greatness, the opportunity to change the game. Let’s think about the “game” of running. Every day millions of people in the US go out for a run, and those millions of people probably pass by hundreds of millions of pieces of trash. What if a few of them picked up just one piece of trash at the end of their run? We could make a pretty big impact.

I am not in anyway going to claim that I am the first person to come up with this idea. Eco-Runner, Samuel Huber and many others were doing it before me. But I am going to claim that I may be the first to calculate the potential environmental impact.

According to Simmons Market Research Bureau there are 13.2 million people who run every chance they get and an additional 13.1 million who run occasionally. So there are over 26 million runners in the US and millions more across the globe. What if 10% or 2.6 million runners picked up a piece of trash just once a week at the end of their run and then recycled it? That would be over 135 million pieces of trash each year. If all the pieces of trash were aluminum cans and those cans were recycled, we would save the energy equivalent of 67.5 million gallons of gas or the equivalent of removing 135,000 cars from the road.

So next time you run by a piece of trash and think that picking it up (and taking it where it can be recycled) will not have an impact, think of the other 26 million runners who might be picking up a piece of trash as well. Together we can change the world.