I have been thinking about the environmental impact of the races I participate in. And this got me thinking about the water bottles. What happens to all those water bottles that get chucked away on the bike ride? For a long distance race I have 3 bottles on the bike which get chucked away over the bike leg, plus the bottles from the nutrition stations. Same thing happens for most of the other athletes as well. What happens to these thousands of bottles after the race?
well Cannondale has developed a biodegradable water bottle that all of their elite teams are using.
see:
https://www.cannondale.com/en/blog/no-more-plastic-bottles
this could be an option in the near future for more bottle suppliers for those who throw their bottles aside.
Persinally I like the idea that back country hikers espouse, carry out what you take in, in other words, I have very old water bottles that I still use, at end of life they go into the recycle bin.
The Cannondale approach is interesting I hadn’t realised they were doing this, plus 3 months to biodegrade is impressive. You could see a future where all nutrition stations on the bike use biodegradable bottles instead of plastic.
At my local (independent) half and full distance races, then they collect the tossed-away bottles, they get taken to the race HQ where they are on a free-to-all to take any used bottles.
Obviously at the 1st feed station folks mainly toss rank old bottles. But for the subsequent ones, plenty of new bottles discarded, half of which have been used to just fill an onboard hydration unit so never even been drunk from.
When I’ve been on a feed station I’ve taken quite a few of those 1-shot bottles to re-use myself from the ‘exit’ end where they’ve been used to refill the onboard systems. (I’ve hardly bought new bottles for years as a result !).
Just give them a wash / Milton fluid sterilisation 1st to be sure.
The organisers for these races get the sacks of discarded used ones (that dont get taken) recycled, as they’re a good type of plastic to recycle and not contaminated by other plastic types.
Not as environmentally sound as ‘be self sufficient’ (which I’d like tris to move towards) but at least some re-use and the rest get recycled.
If you pickup a few extra bottles after the race and take home twice as many as you brought you are now part of the solution. And you get to feel good about that. So its a win/win. You likely have space in your bike bag/case and they don’t weigh much.
I am all for making races lower impact by just allowing you to refill bottles on course. Races are really mainly a game so if everyone is playing by the same rules it is all good.
I ponder it a lot too. Not just races, but now everything I do. I’m cycling to work more, recycling more, and just trying to make small changes. The thing that really grinds me are these huge marathons sponsored by big water companies. One sip of water and the the bottles tossed aside. Hundreds of thousands of them, such a waste, especially when kids in the world can’t get a clean bucket of water to wash in.
Of years of stage racing I’ve collected hundreds of bottles while either driving along the route afterwards or if the race director/staff brings bottles back to the finish. For most pro teams, the bottles are one time use, so I know a few friends that have built a pretty cool collection over the years.
Use stainless steel bottles!
https://drinkbivo.com/ and https://speedfil.com/...n-systems/speedflask
I have the Speedfil Speedflask and my insulated Bivo bottle will be here tomorrow.
I’d hate to discard a good metal bottle though
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I am all for making races lower impact by just allowing you to refill bottles on course. Races are really mainly a game so if everyone is playing by the same rules it is all good.
I think this would be a great idea if you basically just refilled the same bottles each time. As mentioned previously carry out what you carry in. I imagine the main thing preventing this is sponsors and also athlete’s chasing pb’s?
Other option could be why not just wash and reuse the water bottles at the next event. So you have non branded bottles can be shared/pooled between races?
The thing that really grinds me are these huge marathons sponsored by big water companies. One sip of water and the the bottles tossed aside. Hundreds of thousands of them, such a waste, especially when kids in the world can’t get a clean bucket of water to wash in.
Good point its not just the plastic waste but also the water waste that we can take for granted.
Well, they go where all good plastic go to die - the Pacific Ocean of course.
Plastic recycling is a wonderful marketing concept created by the plastics industry. In reality only 4-5% of plastics that go to recycling are actually recycled. The rest go into landfills, ocean, etc. We are now at a point where even China will no longer accept the plastic garbage of the world, so it goes to poorer countries.
Not sure how I feel about stainless steel. I have several, and use them for work, travel, etc. But on the bike it worries me, because if they jettison from your bike, they become a serious crash hazard. at least plastic is soft and compresses (and the lids often blow off when being ridden over), so there’s a better chance of staying upright riding over them, but if the bottle is stainless steel, you’re FUBAR…
I’ve seen races that take the used bottles, sterilize them, and either recycle them (for the manky ones) and then reuse the rest for future events. I’ve also seen ones where they sweep them up and bring them to the finish for people to reclaim them. It’s great that events are moving to reduce their impact (that said, the one exception may be for volunteers or officials, that may be stuck in a position that they can’t leave for long periods of time in extreme heat, it’s great for them to have their own reusable bottles, but it can be hard for them to refill, potentially introducing risk of heat injury, I’ve seen it done, where because I was stuck in an area with no breaks for long periods of time and extreme heat, they had someone pass regularly to grab our bottles and refill them with ice water, but that’s not always the case, and it’s crucial that when developing green event approaches, there are plans to ensure that it’s not at the expense of safety).