I ran the London Marathon this year, and witnessed some amazing sights. I shared a train carriage with a stormtrooper and a lobster and I saw runners and supporters overwhelmed by the emotions of the day. But I also saw the odd runner lobbing their water bottle far into people’s gardens, while right next to them volunteers diligently collected all of the discarded water bottles on the road, using a special super-efficient bottle shovel. As far as I’m aware, there aren’t any prizes awarded for “distance you can throw your bottle” in races, but I’m sure that the locals who find them in their gardens, trees or perhaps on their balconies are very impressed with the effort.

I have run Windermere Marathon a few times, which, as the name suggests, takes place in a very beautiful area and the organisers go to great lengths to avoid runners littering. They have huge bins set up at the water stations, others about 100m further on, as well as a team of marshals who pick up any litter. It’s a pretty foolproof anti-litter system – and yet every year I see somebody chuck a plastic bottle into a hedge, where, if it isn’t found, it will remain for approximately another 450 years.

The London Marathon provides 750,000 bottles of water for runners across 23 water stations. Penny Dain, head of communications for the London Marathon, explains that any pallets of unused water are collected and brought back to their storage depots for use at future events. So, no waste there. And “all used bottles, and other waste items from the London Marathon, are collected by waste service teams from the relevant London Borough. All the bottles (together with other recyclables) are split out and recycled.”

And if you’re wondering why the London Marathon goes for bottles, Penny also had the answer: “There are a myriad of interconnecting reasons that the London Marathon uses bottles rather than cups. Our experience shows that in hot conditions, water distributed from cups, rather than bottles, is an untenable solution for runners. The difficulty in drinking from cups while running, combined with the greater quantity of water required by runners in hot conditions, the greater length of water station required if cups are used, the logistical challenge of delivering the water to the 23 water stations, the time of our road closures, the clean-up operation we have to undertake and the huge number of spectators means that bottles are the best solution.”

It’s a slick operation in London, with no trace left behind – and everything that can be recycled is recycled. That is, if somebody hasn’t chucked their plastic bottle 30 metres into a bush.

Gel wrappers are another all-too-common form of litter left lying around by runners and cyclists. Last year there was an attempt to raise awareness of the effect of gel wrappers on wildlife as it was discovered that deer in Richmond Park have died from eating litter.

There are other, less obvious ways in which the running community litter our landscape. I was course-marking for a race earlier this year on the Thames path and, as I went along putting up signs with arrows on, I found myself taking down many others that had been there for months. I live on the Ridgeway, a popular National Trail, which is used for a lot of races, and many signs go up at the weekends, but they don’t all come down. And big orange arrows that are brutally stapled to fences and trees really don’t look attractive enough to be a permanent feature.

The vast majority of race directors, particularly those who want to stage the race again the following year, are highly responsible. The company I was course-marking for take all its signs down within 24 hours of the race, and then get a course sweeper to double check everything has been removed. But evidently, there are less responsible race organisers out there, too.

So what can we do about the minority of the running community who are litterbugs? There are a lot of lessons we can learn from races that take place in parts of the world where large amounts of litter simply can’t be dealt with. Races held in environments such as mountains, deserts and jungles, where it is hard to get skips full of runner detritus picked up by the local waste management company, have to have zero tolerance.

It’s very common for European ultras to require runners to bring their own cup as part of their mandatory kit. This obviously negates the use of plastic cups and bottles altogether. At the Ultra Trail Du Mont Blanc (UTMB), it is estimated that this saves the organisers 100,000 disposable cups a year. The Montane Lakeland 100/50 and Centurion Running races have adopted this policy and it would be great if more in the UK started doing it. The only downside is that, towards the end of a long race, your drink may start to taste of a mix of coke, squash and soup – but by that point you won’t be very discerning and all calories are gratefully received. The UTMB also uses tap water as much as possible, which saves around 8,000 plastic bottles per year. It even has special containers at aid stations in which to deposit your used batteries from head torches for recycling.

Some races in the mountains give you a small mesh rubbish bag to attach to the waist belt of your backpack, to make sure you have no excuse to drop any litter. Some even give you small black bags, which will be very familiar to dog owners. These are to bag up any toilet roll you may use on the trail, should you need to “go” al fresco.

The ultimate in leaving no trace behind must be the Marathon des Sables, where, as Damian Hall delights in reporting, you are required to “poop in a bag”. These inaccessible environments mean that organisers need to be inventive if they want to stage their races …

Most races do have a rule saying that if you are caught relieving yourself in public, or dropping litter, you will be disqualified. But despite seeing hundreds of runners doing both at pretty much every race I’ve ever done, I’ve never been aware of a disqualification.

Organisations such as Good Gym carry out community projects such as litter picking, and I’ve known race organisers tell runners to pick up any litter they see while out on trail races. But at the end of the day, it is up to race organisers and runners to find ways to eliminate mindless littering in the first place. If you take it out running with you, you bring it back or put it in a bin. Tour de France riders might feel the need to jettison that extra water bottle weight before their sprint finish, but an empty gel wrapper in your pocket probably won’t disadvantage your half marathon time too much.

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