please empty your brain below
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I knew there was going to be more than three bridges today. Mr Geezer, have you ever written a piece on Three Bridges?
MO | 22.04.18 - 4:34 p.m. | #
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What a sour faced person you are. Yes, this needs looking but the London marathon is a great thing for the capital.
I suggest you stay at home and whine indoors when it’s on next year.
Mark | 22.04.18 - 4:39 p.m. | #
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Yes, Mark, the Marathon is a great thing for the capital. But beneath DG's hyperbole is a serious point: the Marathon could be so much greater even with just some insistence that water and other fluids be served in recyclable containers. Surely 'tis not beyond the wit of man for the organisers to insist that those wanting the publicity of supplying their branded drinks use such containers?
(And not unreasonable to expect TfL to do likewise with water handed out to tube travellers on very hot days.)
John U.K. | 22.04.18 - 4:48 p.m. | #
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"13.7 grams of sugar"
They halved it recently, remember.
dg writes: Not these bottles. I checked.
Which is, if you read people's tweets to the brand, why this happened:
"casting pallets-worth into the gutter after barely a couple of gulps"
because it is undrinkable now. ;)
Si | 22.04.18 - 5:03 p.m. | #
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Mark
Did you not detect perhaps just a smidgen of satire in this piece?
MO | 22.04.18 - 5:08 p.m. | #
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John - they are recyclable containers, the problem is that they aren't multi-use ones, and they are littered on the street.
Si | 22.04.18 - 5:10 p.m. | #
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I know about the terrible things resulting from my lifestyle choices.. the environmental degradation, the tax violations the companies I buy from, and the labour abuses involved in the products I buy.
But, to be honest, it'd be a bit of a hassle to change my life, wouldn't it?
And, everyone else is doing it, so it must be OK.
I'm pretty happy pootling along ignoring the environmental and social destruction in my wake, thank you very much.
David | 22.04.18 - 5:12 p.m. | #
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Considering most of the bottles still contain a lot of their liquid, how are they recycled - do those clearing up empty the contents down the drain?
Still Anon | 22.04.18 - 5:18 p.m. | #
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An interesting view of the marathon.
Temporary drinking water taps around the course could easily be installed by fitting stand pipes at some of the many fire hydrants along the route.
If a spa water company wants to sponsor drinks and get publicity use large water bottles and dispense in paper cups, would save a lot of plastic.
John | 22.04.18 - 5:21 p.m. | #
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I remember when they slavered the runners in a certain vegetable oil based margarine as part of a sponsorship deal...
Uncle Audrey | 22.04.18 - 5:55 p.m. | #
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There's a company that makes biodegradable, swallowable capsules full of water. Pop one of those in your gob every half a mile or so.
Uncle Audrey | 22.04.18 - 5:56 p.m. | #
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When I ran the London Marathon in 1988 (almost as hot as this year, I think), the main use for water was to pour it over myself to cool down, not to drink. So paper cups would have been ideal!
Peter Cameron | Homepage | 22.04.18 - 7:08 p.m. | #
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Have you walked the course before, DG?
Jimmy | 22.04.18 - 7:17 p.m. | #
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If I were ever to run a marathon (and I won't), I'd be the one holding an empty water bottle looking for a bin. Throwing them on the ground just seems so rude, even if that's what is meant to happen.
Andrew S | 22.04.18 - 7:51 p.m. | #
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From looking at the Marathon site, it appears that the bottles are recycled, and they're trialling compostable paper cups at several water stations this year with a view to introducing them next year.
At Brighton Marathon last week they'd switched almost completely to paper cups from water bottles.
Jamesthegill | 22.04.18 - 8:51 p.m. | #
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the London Marathon is currently sponsored by a bank, not an airline.
martin | 22.04.18 - 8:58 p.m. | #
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Ironically the same contradictions occur when Sadiq Khan says he's determined to reduce the pollution levels in London's air, and yet seems positively keen for Formula1 racing to take place in the City.
Sheesh, the mpg figures for a F1 car !!!
RogerW | 22.04.18 - 9:39 p.m. | #
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@Peter Cameron: They do have 'sprinkler stations' too, or at least they did in 2016. I stood by one (near Canary Wharf) for quite a while waiting for a photogenic image of someone running under it, but surprisingly few of the runners actually did
RogerW | 22.04.18 - 9:52 p.m. | #
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I hope you were serious. I absolutely agree, especially about the water and waste.
How can it be justified?
Sally Hirst | 22.04.18 - 9:59 p.m. | #
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There's an interesting thing here about how much is discarded having not been drunk. But also interesting to note that smaller bottles are often more expensive to buy in the shops - possibly because they have higher production costs.
Strange as it may seem, it's possible that it's better to give out the bigger bottles and have some left over.
Still, as long as it's all recycled, that's better than nothing. The Marathon is an exception rather than normal behaviour of course.
(BTW was I the only one reading this post imagining DG as a "foaming at the mouth" reader of the Daily Mail?)
Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 22.04.18 - 10:29 p.m. | #
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Hmm. Has plastic waste become a bandwagon? Possibly. But running a marathon is something of a special case - I don't think Pheidippides had time to stop and drink water out of a necessarily stationary drinking fountain, or he wouldn't have got to Athens in time to catch the late editions.
Malcolm | 22.04.18 - 10:43 p.m. | #
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I ran a half marathon a short while ago. I was surprised at how little water people drank from the bottles before throwing them away. I was even more surprised at how few people actually ran holding the bottles. I could quite comfortably run carrying two bottles.
@RogerW They had the sprinkler stations again this year as I saw one during the coverage of the Elite runners race on Sunday.
Jon Jones | 23.04.18 - 7:08 a.m. | #
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No sprinkler stations in my day, but at least there were some kind-hearted spectators with hoses at a few points on the course.
What I remember most clearly was the street parties playing some of the hits of the day, including "Nowhere to run" and "Baby give it up".
Peter Cameron | Homepage | 23.04.18 - 8:00 a.m. | #
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This report from 2016 says that the plastic bottles are recycled.
However, I agree, the wrong message is sent by having a bottled water company as a sponsor. Their stands and signs were almost as ubiquitous in the TV coverage as the the dreadful V****n M****y.
Charles | Homepage | 23.04.18 - 9:33 a.m. | #
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"We should end this annual charade and give thirty quid to charity instead"
It's a serious 26.2 mile running race, not a village fun run. I'm not quite sure how making a charity donation would be a substitute for the thousands of club runners, let alone the elites, who spent months training to get good times in difficult conditions.
Rob | 23.04.18 - 11:29 a.m. | #
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It's not just the bottles, but loads of non-recyclable plastic bags and a surprising amount of clothing (presumably going to charity). This photo is a tiny fraction of what has to be cleaned up at Blackheath
https://flic.kr/p/sk3LT2
Very few would take a re-fillable bottle and stop at a tap.
Paper cups sounds good. Im my younger youth I remember making 'water bombs' out of folded paper too.
NickW | 23.04.18 - 2:10 p.m. | #
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A deposit on bottles is proposed. What a money making opportunity.
MikeH | 23.04.18 - 4:19 p.m. | #
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As has been covered many times in the media the London Marathon is a massive commercial operation and as DG highlights if you want to generate money for charity there are far better and more effective ways of doing so.
| 23.04.18 - 5:02 p.m. | #
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"Unnecessary motivational placards had been made from timber-based sources."
diamond geezer | Homepage | 23.04.18 - 6:25 p.m. | #
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There's no doubt this is an environmental catastrophe and a monumental missed opportunity to promote planetary sanity. (1) All containers should be at best consumable (and consumed) and at worst compostable. (2) All sponsoring purveyors of containers of any type should be forced as a prerequisite to contribute materially to post-event cleansing, composting and recycling, and to research into 100% non-polluting, non-residual recycling. Plus an ocean clean-up tax for good measure.
Strabismus | 24.04.18 - 12:34 p.m. | #
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For a couple of years now in Germany you have to pay a deposit of 0,25€ (more than 20 pence) for each bottle of water. Since then we have no more problems with abandoned bottles ...
Michael | 25.04.18 - 12:49 p.m. | #
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Runners were instructed to leave bottles on the curbside such that they can be collected efficiently and not obstruct runners and continue without much interruption.
Buxton (but not Lucozade, the other supplier) tried to implement bottles that all three components (bottle, label and cap) were recyclable. It was intended that the huge magnitude of these bottles were collected separately from the curb following the race (as the road markings were cleared) and directly sent to recycling.
However, runners were also told to make sure all water was expelled; the water waste must have indeed been awful. Indeed, the stark sight of many bottles tossed to the side was a prime picture opportunity for environmental campaigners.
Three of the water stations were also trialling compostable containers for containing water to hand to runners. It seemed these were received (by the non-elites) fairly well.
...Just for a bit of balance!
Matthew | 29.04.18 - 6:07 p.m. | #
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