By Paul Hyman
Photos: Warren Suzuki and Peter Tranter
www.hurleyclassic.
co.uk/
environment.html
Earlier this year, Active360 produced a checklist for waterside events to help them to reduce the amount of plastic trash they generate. This can be huge as traditionally events have used plastic cups, cutlery, food packaging and plastic drinks bottles.
No plastic please…We’re the Hurley Classic
Often the clearing up is left to the end and we have all seen the aftermath many times with bins overflowing and trash blowing around into the nearby water. The Oxford Cambridge Boat Race is a Classic River Trashfest which annually produces tons of plastic trash filling bins and polluting the Thames. 2017 was an epic year for trash as warm weather brought many people to the riverside and the trash was still blowing around some riverside spaces for days after.
This year’s sponsor, Smart Water (owned by Coca Cola), was handing out free bottled water on the riverside and many empty and partly full bottles washed around the river over the following few weeks. For the past few years Active360 have been keen not to be taking part in events where measures are not in place to reduce the plastic trash they generate. We’ve decided going forward, to turn down any new events not trying to reduce plastic and to encourage and help all our long standing event partners to reduce their waste.
Andrew ‘Jacko’ Jackson was looking to reduce the plastic footprint of the Hurley Classic weekend and looking to develop the growing SUP as part of the event in future years. With no running water on site it has typically relied on bottled water and drinks to keep participants hydrated and therefore in January Jacko asked Active360 to come along to observe.
The team of organisers adopted our checklist and took a range of measures to greatly reduce single plastic and generally reduce any detrimental impact on the river. So no bottled water or plastic bottled drinks were sold or given out and there were plenty of tap water refills, cheaper hot drinks if you bought an event mug or took your own. Also food was served on plates made from leaves, birch cutlery, compostable beer glasses, and transport sharing was encouraged
This was promoted to the hundreds of kayakers participating and spectators and interviewed top competitors were used as influencers Also see the attached statement
Commitment
The event has never done anything like this and it mostly came from a late night pub conversation we had a few months ago. Jacko is now committed to taking it as far as they can go in future years – so expect reusable beer glasses and more next year www.hurleyclassic.co.uk/environment.html.
They would have included an on water litter pick (there is now some plastic pollution at Hurley which is sad as there was hardly any there when I stopped regular whitewater paddling some seven years ago) but it was snowing and so not ideal for that this year.
This all had a positive effect on the event and it ran as well as usual with no complaints, great atmosphere, competition and a very happy and co-operative catering company who no doubt have been signed up for next year as the food was considered the best ever and prices were as per usual for events plus everyone liked the plates, etc.
So everyone in the paddlesport world can use this event as a model of good practice and we have a whole summer of river and canal events ahead to see how far and how fast we can push this agenda. Events can be a good way to influence behaviour to protect the rivers we love from the growing damage caused by plastic pollution.
