8:16am Wednesday 24th June 2009
By Keith Thomson
Recently I went to Lister Park to support family and friends as they took part in the Race For Life fundraising event. It was remarkably well-organised with 5,000 females, a great deal of laughter, and pink the dominant colour.
It ticked almost all the boxes, getting thousands to a wonderful park, encouraging exercise, and raising much-needed funds for a charity that supports work on defeating cancer.
There’s not much wrong with an experience that emphasises the importance of family and the workplace and involved a young girl winning and 80-year-old great-grandmothers stomping along at the back with those on crutches.
However, I do have concerns about some aspects of the organisation, particularly as it is big business with more than 230 similar events this summer, more than 600,000 runners and many thousands of volunteers making it all possible. It’s not surprising that commercial companies are keen to sponsor the races as they get extra market penetration and much goodwill.
Because of this, I would expect a modern, informed charity to set appropriate standards in terms of waste, use of resources and impact on behaviour, and frustratingly this was not the case, with the bottled water, the heavy-duty plastic bags and the pink backpacks containing the medal and goodies.
While the runners need a drink after their efforts, it doesn’t have to be in a trade-named plastic bottle – made from oil, difficult to dispose of, and unlikely to be recycled in most parts of the country. Despite requiring more volunteer help, a paper cup filled with tap water would be less damaging as it could be made from recycled paper and collected for composting after use.
The same goes for the plastic bags given out by a sponsor – they could have been made of recycled paper, increasing the market for collected paper, and also would have been biodegradable.
Similarly, the pink medal sacks, bearing the name of the supporting supermarket and a recycling logo, were quite confusing. They seem to be made of a synthetic material that is unlikely to be recyclable in this country, despite the logo, and they were a great missed opportunity for a longer-lasting more durable bag made from hemp or cotton. Not only would this reduce waste and save oil, but it would be more useful and a better advert.
The cancer challenge was well met, but it’s disappointing that the sponsors missed the opportunity to set higher environmental standards.
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