Courtesy SCSM
Friday 29 November - 1 Sunday December 2019
This year’s Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon (SCSM) is ramping up efforts to reduce the impact and accumulated waste on the environment and at the same time offering a great experience to runners and spectators. A regular event on Singapore’s running calendar since 2002, the SCSM will for the first time run an evening race this year. The SCSM organisers have put together a three-day weekend long festival of running as well as live bands performance art and local food.
“Since 2018, we have partnered with Green Nudge, a Singapore-based environmental-focus social enterprise, to put in place effective measures to make SCSM a greener race,” says Carl Smith, Operations Head at IRONMAN Asia who organise the race. “With proper signage put in place, MCs reminding runners to bin responsibly, and the presence of Green Ambassadors - there will be more than 50 special green volunteers - (we aim to) greatly reduced littering by up to 96% as everyone can throw their trash in the appropriate bins.”
Local runners are expected to go green too. Courtesy SCSM.
Smith says that research has shown that large scale events such marathons, generate massive carbon footprints with thousands travelling in from all over the world to the some events. According to the organisers of one recent marathon which attracted over 27,000 runners – the event produced almost 22,000kg of waste - just slightly less than the weight of two buses. The waste contained almost 40,000 banana peels, more than 18,000 energy gel wrappers, and countless paper cups and water bottles. In another big event, Boston Marathon 2017 went through some 62,000 disposable water bottles, 1.4 million water cups, and 171,380 brochures to fill a whopping 10,0000 bags of trash after the event. That's equivalent to a full bag of trash for every three participants!
“During the annual pre-Race Expo, more than 5,000 signatures (for the SCSM) were gathered by runners who pledged to bin their waste responsibly,” says Smith. Better still, leftover medals are melted down and used to create new medals for future races, in an effort to prevent wastage. Two special volunteers will be assigned to the banana stations to keep an eye on discarded banana peels, and a Central Sustainability station at the Post-Race Village will help educate and increase awareness about littering.
Also, the introduction of the evening race from 6pm will allow runners to beat the heat and enjoy cooler temperatures resulting in better performance, less dehydration – and possibly less bottle litter.
The evening race is a first for 2019. Courtesy SCSM.
“In 2019, we will be taking more actions to ensure a … greener race than ever before. Organising a marathon whilst keeping track of its impact is definitely not easy with runners coming from all around the world, but there are definitely other ways for us to reduce our carbon footprint which would be included in this year’s marathon,” he adds.
Smith says for good event planning and management (and reduced waste), the most crucial factor is good communication between stakeholders. For example, requesting the t-shirt sizes for volunteers earlier gives more time for organisers to order correct sizes, and ovoid having a large number of wrong-size shirts left over.
Best of all, the organisers have mimicked the Northside music festival and using multiple waste/recycle bins for different contents such as plastic bottles, cans, towels, banana skins and crisp packets.
“As more and more marathons are pledging to go green each year, we are realising the power that we have as organisers to be the change, and make a greater, positive impact on our environment. While there is definitely more to be done, every little step taken now, matters for a more sustainable future,” says Smith.