Bring your own bottle?
- Details
- Created on Saturday, 28 May 2011 16:33
- Written by Evan Thomas
Bolder Boulder pushes for cup-free racing
By Vanessa Miller, Boulder Daily Camera
Imagine this: More than 50,000 runners and walkers arriving safely and fully hydrated to Folsom Field after traveling 10 kilometers through downtown Boulder without the need for a quarter-million miniature paper cups at aid stations along the way.
That Bolder Boulder dream could one day become a reality, and organizers of the famed Memorial Day race are starting toward that goal by offering new high-speed dispensing valves on aid-station coolers that encourage participants to bring their own drink containers to refill along the route.
By attaching HydraPour valves to 150-gallon Water Monster tanks and Gatorade coolers at the six aid stations along the 10K course this year, event planners are hoping to eliminate some of the 250,000-plus paper cups that have been used in the past to hydrate Bolder Boulder runners.
"It makes up a very big portion of the trash at the race," assistant race director Matt Jenkins said, noting that the Bolder Boulder composts most of the cups that it hands out to passing runners. "But it's best not to have them in the first place."
The push for "cup-free racing" is one of several efforts the Bolder Boulder is making to continue reducing its environmental impact. In recent years, the race has succeeded in diverting an average of 35 percent of all its waste from landfills, and organizers want to see that percentage grow.
"We are doing a little bit better every year," Jenkins said.
As part of its effort to slash the number of cups it uses, Jenkins said, the Bolder Boulder for the first time this year is selling HydraPouch containers that are made especially to work with the high-speed HydraPour valves that it is now using at aid stations.
Read more about the shift to reusable bottles at the Boulder Daily Camera.
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