It's easy being green at walkathon
The largest walkathon fundraiser in Shanghai, the nine-year-old E.G.G. Walkathon, is going greener.
About 555 kilograms, or 68 percent of waste generated during the event on Saturday, is to be recycled.
This beats last year's 51 percent when organizer Shanghai United Foundation, together with the Friends of Nature, a national organization promoting environmental protection, introduced the target of zero waste.
The total amount of waste collected this year was 814 kilograms, while last year it was 1,052 kilograms, the foundation said on Sunday.
It was quite a feat as this year’s 50-kilometer challenge, held in the Pudong New Area, attracted more than 4,000 people.
All were told to discard and sort their waste at four checkpoints along the route, as well as at the end.
Waste is sorted.
Volunteers at the Qigan Village checkpoint.
Wei Jiayu, secretary-general of the New Citizen Program, an organization based in Beijing which is devoted to improving the education of migrant children, took part in the walkathon for the first time.
Wei said it was his first “zero waste” walk.
“We strictly followed the rules and brought bags and water bottles with us,” he said. “It’s a good mission, and it saves the street cleaners a lot of work.”
Chen Shuangmao, founder of the Center of Youth Talent Enlightened, an organization based in Shanghai, has been taking part in the walkathon for six years.
“Before the ‘zero waste’ idea was introduced, litter boxes along the route always brimmed with garbage, but no longer now,” he said.
According to the Friends of Nature, less garbage was collected this year because more people consumed all the water in their bottles or yogurt in cartons before discarding the package, and no flags, banners and shoes were found at the starting point.
Akiyoshi Kaede, a long-term volunteer from Japan, said garbage-sorting volunteers were better organized this year.
“This time there was a supervisor of volunteers at every checkpoint, including me, so that it was more efficient for us to solve problems on the spot,” she said.
The volunteers guided people to put different kinds of garbage into tanks for “food without packaging,” “plastic bottles” and “all other waste.”
Kaede said the organizers had done their job to ensure that all participants have the notion of “zero waste” in mind.
“The sponsors who had stands at check points now sorted out their waste before turning it in to us, which saved us a lot of trouble,” she said.
Xiao Jie, vice secretary of Shanghai United Foundation, said the green effort also involves many of the event’s partners.
“We asked our bottled water provider Shanghai Tower to offer bigger bottles, while the paper water towels given free to the participants were degradable,” she said.
“The supply packages we gave out have team numbers on them, and the teams will be named and shamed if we find irresponsibly discarded garbage,” Xiao added.
Last year, 321 kilograms of food waste and 215 kilograms of plastic bottles were recycled.
The food waste was used to produce fertilizer, and the plastic bottles were recycled to become fiber, according to the foundation.
This year, local environment technology company Plastic Ecological Transformation was engaged to recycle all of the plastic bottles collected at the event.
The bottles will be made into gifts for participants. People can track the recycling process of the bottles from their collection to reincarnation into new products via a WeChat app.
The company collected 10,510 plastic bottles weighing 210 kilograms at the event.
Wu Xiao, who is in charge of the “Novaloop” project, a “zero waste” effort by the Friends of Nature, said awareness of garbage sorting and recycling is going stronger among organizers of large events such as this around China.
According to the organization, “zero waste” management of an event could reduce up to 85 percent of waste which would otherwise end up in furnaces or landfills.
Wu said they are calling for the government to introduce standards of waste management for outdoor sports events.
