Making events more environmentally-friendly

[Carnage Head]

I reckon o is quite an eco-friendly sport anyway (not wanting to destroy the surroundings we race in plays a crucial part). I like the recycling schemes at recent big events, and the bus service at the Scottish 6-day, and the 'cram as many people into one car to get to a race' philosophy.

However, as I was offered yet another plastic bottle at the end of a race, I wonder what else we could do to make the sport more sustainable. How about:

1. Having plastic jerry-cans to dispense water from at the end of a race (with plastic cups, admittedly) (like many races still do), rather than giving out bottled water

2. Promoting public transport as ways of getting to races (eg Harvester - the number of the bus service was given out on the website and I know that people used it) - perhaps it should be good practise to put 'nearest bus stop / train station' if at all possible on event flyers.

3. Promoting car sharing (eg Nopesport share-a-lift) more heavily

4. Combining more than one event into a weekend or slimming down the number of regional events in favour of increasing the number of local events (see the 'slimming down the calendar' tangent on Mrs H's recent thread)

5. Should we even aim as far as trying to carbon balance events (using websites to work out how much CO2 is emitted, then buying credits...)?

Any other ideas? Or thoughts? Or attacks on the entire premise?! (eg James Lovelock - we're all doomed, but we can make the doom less hellish!)

(Apologies if this has been discussed before - not searched the archives.)

[ifititches]

oops, just posted something a bit related under coaching, but fully agree with you. Compared to other sports I'm in, O is not very eco friendly.

I got an article in a medical jouranl last week on how to calculate your carbon footprint. It was complicated but very interesting. Guess there maybe an equivalent on an internet site somewhere; perhaps we should have a competition to identify the orienteer with the smallest?(footprint)

[Neil M35]

I am a committed bus user during the week and occasionally attempt to get to races by public transport (usually because mrs M35 wants the car), but it isn't easy. Public transport services are not designed to get people to O-races. For example, a couple of years ago EPOC had a race where the assembly was in Marsden station car park. Ideal, a short trip on the train from Leeds, except that there are no Sunday services to Marsden.

It would help if there was some sort of communal area where you could get changed and leave your bag. Some races do provide this, but often it is a case of asking to leave kit in the enquiries tent or a friendly car, and getting changed al-fresco.

[ER]

It seems to be by custom rather than necessity that drinks are provided post race. At any other type of athletic event drinks are not normally provided, the competitor ensures their full water bottle is taken to the race/event. It seems an unecessary cost to the environment and the organisation to provide water post race.

[Tatty]

How??

[J.Tullster]

The empty bottles of water at the end of the harvester were all collected for recyling.

[Supersaint]

Not sure if any clubs in Britian do this already, but when i've been in Sweden it is customary for all of the people in a club to meet at the same place each morning of a race, and then just take the minimum number of cars needed (i.e. every car is full, other cars are left there so as to avoid adding unneceessary carbon emissions). Would be a good idea, although many clubs members are spread over a much wider area, but would certainly be worth looking at even if on a smaller scale.

[Axel]

Have we got any local bus or train services left, if we have their sure to be cut in the near future!!! In realality its car or bust.

Car sharing great idea it my make my car journeys more pleasant, perhaps my children might not fight so much and I would have valid excuse to turn down there ear bashing music.

Health and Safety, hot day, drink stations and drink at the end a must whether from a container or bottle it matters not.

[Angry Haggis]

Have we got any local bus or train services left, if we have their sure to be cut in the near future!!! In realality its car or bust.

I've made it to around 25 events this season by public transport + bike. Admittedly most of them are in the south east. e.g. train+biking it to Knole Park this Sunday.

[bendover]

WILFS - a scandal that they are still using styrofoam... a material that won't degrade for the next 25million years!!!

they should be boycotted at all orienteering events until they replace these styrofoam containers with recyclable materials! even mcdonalds uses recyclable materials!!!! (apart from the actual food, i doubt that is biodegradable)

[SeanC]

Promoting car sharing has got to be the best way of reducing orienteerings environmental impact, plus it would make orienteering more sociable and make organising events easier (finding a big enough car park can be very difficult - at least in south east london).

The trouble is car sharing means more time and effort and less freedom. You have to contact other orienteers the week before the event, you are likely to spend longer travelling to the event, you might have to start when you dont want to and may have to hang around for someone when you want to go home. I guess this is why car sharing is the exception rather than the norm (apart from families)?

How about rewarding orienteers who car share or who go by public transport? If you move some of the event costs from entry fees to car park fees you achieve this. Ie for a typical colour coded event you could change these fees:

Adults: £5
Children: £2.50
Parking: £1 per car

to

Adults: £2.00
Children: £1.00
Parking: £10 per car

Would this cause a riot?

[Godders]

Would this cause a riot?

I'd just park on the road outside the car park

[awk]

As a family, we use public transport a lot: the bus and rail networks round us are both good and cheap.

However, they come to a grinding halt on Sundays. For example: the Bradford service from our station (150m walk away) goes from half-hourly in the week to one every two hours on Sundays. This contrasts unfavourably with Switzerland (but then don't most things public transport?) where they use a standard timetable all week round, and public transport is more heavily used by orienteers.

One of the simplest ways to help make orienteering more accessible to public transport users would be to change to Saturdays as the main day for competition. Whether that would also see a substantial reduction in numbers (I think it might) would be a different matter, but maybe more events not on Sundays and with public transport advertised would go some way to helping. (It was good to be able to travel to 2 of the JK days by train, Friday and Saturday).

On the water front: I see no need for organisers to provide water at the finish. Bring your own water bottles!!!

[roadrunner]

I completely support the idea of organisers listing public transport information on event flyers - though as others have said already, the system is poor in most areas on Sundays. For example, I once travelled by train to a half-marathon rather than driving. It should have been a simple enough journey, but un-announced engineering work meant a missed connection and a half-hour delay (fortunately I'd left enough time).

Car sharing might be more practical (and it happens on an informal basis anyway), but we tried to get it going in my club many years ago and it failed completely. I think the problem is that (for events within a couple of hours drive) people don't want to devote the whole day to orienteering, and travelling independently gives them more opportunity to go off and "do their own thing" afterwards. I would certainly oppose punitive parking charges as a way to encourage car sharing, since this would discriminate against anyone who (for whatever reason) did not have someone else to share with; it would also deter "entry on the day", and thereby probably reduce attendance.

As to water at the finish, this is universal at road races. I'm not sure which is better environmentally - disposable cups or recyclable bottles. Of course competitors can (and should) bring their own drinks, but these will have been left in the car park, which may be some distance from the finish.

[Barny of Blandford]

I am probably a sad person but I always read with interest the labels on the bottles at events to see where the water has come from
example - water in Cornwall/Devon from Radnorshire recently - the logic of things like this defeats me and at present I am marking 260 case studies for AS Design Technology on transport systems which is all about such matters (also some of the studies defeat me just as much!!!)
If we had local bottled water from Cornwall in Cornwall (and so on)I could understand it a bit more
To be fair they - like many others - were good at collecting the plastic empties to recycle

Unfortunately we live in Dorset which does not have the most wonderful bus and rail systems but we did manage to fill up the car with four bodies today to go to the Moonraker Relays (an excellent event run by Sarum) For us to be environmentally friendly is rather difficult (not all of us are like Arthur Boyt who often cycles quite long distances to events) and cars are often the only real option
I suppose we should look to the oversears clubs who all meet up and use a coach to take everyone to the event but I think our organisation of sport generally is nothing like as centralised as many other countries - probably our weakness and one of the reasons we find it dificult to build up a good club ethos in this country