Girls on the Run (GOTR), an international non-profit, is on a mission to empower girls around the world by promoting both mental and physical health. This organization has local chapters that cater to nearby communities with over 1,500 volunteers serving over 4,000 girls, annually, at GOTR Montgomery County. Leanne Till, the 5K Director for the County’s GOTR chapter, has been coordinating active, joyful and safe spaces for young girls to run the races every spring and fall, which attract more than 8,000 runners.
While large events like this offer many positives to participants and parents, they can also produce large amounts of waste. Till, along with a team of GOTR staff and volunteers, have networked and found various ways to reduce waste through sponsors and recycling haulers.
Also a resident of Montgomery County, Till saw many composting bins at local businesses and throughout her neighborhood. These bins guided her to Compost Crew! After connecting with our CEO, Ben Parry, it was a no-brainer for our company to partner with a community-based organization with zero waste initiatives.
In 2019, GOTR Montgomery County introduced composting to its race days. Compost Crew employees attend and engage with the community during the races. We hang out near our bright blue trucks to answer composting questions and encourage volunteers of all ages to walk around with Compost Crew bins to bring composting right to the racers. Tens of thousands of participants have crossed the finish line, composting items like banana peels and compostable water cups donated by World Centric!
While composting saves this non-profit money on trash hauling services, Till expresses that recycling food waste has manifested into something greater.
Montgomery County is recognized for its ongoing sustainability efforts. GOTR Montgomery County has happily fallen into the same pattern by reducing opportunities for waste in the first place. Their volunteers even peel each sticker off of the bananas to reduce contamination.
In the past, thousands of participants:
- Were offered pre-ordered t-shirts to wear during the race but would not actually accept or wear them, leaving an average of 50-100 excess t-shirts, each race.
- Threw away wax-lined paper bibs and the pins that held them after the race
- Provided water bottles to all racers
Now, GOTR avoids over-consumption and unnecessary waste by:
- Replacing t-shirts with visors in the Spring and warm hats in the winter that are useful during the races. Racers can opt out of receiving either.
- Recycling race bibs and pins, instead. They’ve reused approximately 1200 of them, so far, already!
- Collecting the pins in sets of four to be reused for the next race
Throughout the event, participants are guided to organize any waste into designated bins including compost, recycling, and trash. Racers are also encouraged to bring reusable bottles to fill during the race. Other partners like DrinkMore donates 50 5-gallon water jugs in lieu of the thousands of bottled water previously supplied. In addition, all cups are compostable!
Reducing opportunity for waste and finding various waste disposal alternatives has been successful at events at this scale. GOTR hosts thousands of impressionable youth. This collective action shows them just how easy and accessible recycling organic waste should be, through education and action. We are delighted to play a small part in Girls on the Run’s efforts to foster community, propel education and sustain positive social and environmental impact.
