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April 25, 2011 in City
Face Time: Bloomsday organizer has greener vision of race
Bloomsday board member Steven Jones sits at the top of Doomsday Hill on Friday. Jones runs the race every year.
(Full-size photo)
What do more than 50,000 sweaty runners and walkers have to do with your garden?
Local attorney Steven Jones, who has been running, helping and organizing Bloomsday for more than 30 years, shared some behind-the-scenes efforts aimed at lessening the race’s environmental footprint.
Q. Tell us about the cups. How many are used?
A. We can approach a half-million cups. We’re prepared for two cups per person per aid station. Usage, of course, depends a lot on the weather. If you have a warmer day, more people stop and drink more water. We always plan to have plenty. We don’t want to run out.
Q. What happens to them?
A. For the past three years we’ve been composting. That’s been a big change. We’ve always tried to be mindful of waste and recycling and we’re moving more and more in the right direction. The cups now get turned back into what people can put into their gardens. It’s pretty amazing.
Q. Should we throw cups in trash bins or on the street?
A. People should drink and then throw the cups off to the side.
Q. Is Bloomsday achieving results from recycling?
A. We think so. We always want to do better each race. This year we’re going to expand our recycling stations along Riverside at the start of the race at the cross streets for plastic water bottles. Watch for the new banners this year. Hopefully people will put their bottles in the recycling stations instead of the trash.
We received certification from the Council for Responsible Sport. They have an extensive list of items that measure how well you do being mindful of the environment. One of the biggest things we continue to do is having so many people come by transit to downtown.
Q. Is there ever a shortage of volunteers?
A. It can happen. I would hope at some point to find a high school environmental or ecology club to assist with all of this. I think it would be wonderful for them and wonderful for us.
Q. Who is behind the efforts to make Bloomsday a greener race?
A. The whole board, really. Bloomsday has always been a celebration of personal fitness and community. The run itself and the training leading up to it all can lead to a healthier person and lifestyle, and this is just sort of a natural outgrowth of that. Because we must be mindful of not only what we’re doing with our bodies, but what we’re doing with community and our world.
Q. What else is new?
A. In conjunction with Hoopfest and the city of Spokane’s solid waste department, we’re creating a recycling lending library of sorts. We will have recycling containers available for other events to use, essentially for free to other community events by contacting the city.
Q. What’s your fastest Bloomsday time? How about this year?
A. I ran it once in 39 (minutes) 48 (seconds). This year maybe about an hour and 15 minutes. I’ve been battling a few little knee problems. I’m just going to try to keep up with Ali (his 10-year-old daughter and fifth-grade student at Shiloh Hills). She buried me last week in the Race for the Cure. I just couldn’t hang with her.
Parishes giving $1.5 million toward settling sex cases 
ZagChuck on April 25 at 5:41 a.m.
I like Bloomsday; it brings lots of people to the area and their dollars end up in our economy, supporting jobs and businesses But this attempt to sell it as green goes a little too far.
I understand they are doing what they can, but the recycling of a few paper cups and plastic bottles support doesn’t even offset the carbon footprint of the trucks it takes to haul of those recyclables at the end of the event, let alone the carb9n footprint to produce those items.
On top of that you have the carbon footprint of:
all of the trucks that spend a week cleaning the street
all of the trucks delivering/retrieving all of the barrier material
all of the emt’s vehicles running specifically for this event
all tof the security/police vehicles running specifically for this event
as well as the carbon footprint for all of those who travel to and from outside the area
etc…
I’m not saying Bloomsday is bad; not in any way/shape/or form. But trying to make it appear as something it’s not is just silly.
It’s like saying you went to a Globe Trotters game and saw a great competition. It just doesn’t match.
JBlim on April 25 at 7:16 a.m.
Given that Bloomsday is going to happen anyway, I don’t see anything “silly” about it ZagChuck. People are going to have their fun, that doesn’t mean we have to be irresponsible about it.
Ninch on April 25 at 7:55 a.m.
I always chuckle about people who focus on the “carbon footprint” here in the Northwest. I am surprise such persons have not complained about the “carbon footprint” and other gases from all those people running in Bloomsday.
Think about this… we have trees, trees, and more trees to absorb local CO2 and in exchange give out that good ol’ clean oxygen.
Also think about how Bloomsday (a supercharged event) is now promoting healthy behavior (e.g. recycling) in addition to personal healthy lifestyle, which in turn evolves into healthy communities.
de3 on April 25 at 8:51 a.m.
Considering the thousands of runners and their families that DRIVE over from Puget Sound … considering that the event is promoted as economic growth because of how many outsiders it brings in who DRIVE or FLY in from all the states and many countries of the world …
Bloomsday is not a “green” event and trying to spin it that way is embarrassing. Composting 1/2 million paper cups (which were likely shipped here from out of state and will be used for mere seconds before being tossed to the ground), does not make this an eco-green event.
The green impact of composting these paper cups is a tiny invisible fraction of the overall environmental impact. Great their doing that, but don’t spin this as an environmental event.
ManleyPointer on April 25 at 10:56 a.m.
99% of all attempts to be “green” are absurd on their face. If I didn’t think all this emphasis on being “green” was laughable (and largely self-contradictory) to begin with, it would be sad. Why do so many people find it necessary to apologize for being the dominant species of life on earth? And why do these same people equate being “green” with being environmentally responsible?
Moderation and common sense should be informing our relationship with our environment, not absurdity and self-flagellation.
Thoreau on April 25 at 12:57 p.m.
I think Bloomsday is run in an efficient, conscientious manner.
However, seeing as how it is a charity race, I always wonder when STA will stop charging for rides that Sunday morning.
Really, how much money would STA have spent on any other Sunday morning?
Orphan on April 25 at 3:22 p.m.
ManlyPointer, Zagchuck, Ninch You guys took the words right off of my keyboard green my bunns. If they were truely wanting to be green they would limit the participants to a 30 mile travel distance and make everybody clean up afterwards. More feel good BS from the greenies.
JBlim on April 25 at 5:59 p.m.
The usual crowd just mindlessly attacks anything that could be construed as environmentally friendly. The illogical is insane, you might as well say that since travel by airplane is so dirty you ought to just flush the toilets over Spokane on landing.
greenlibertarian on April 25 at 6:32 p.m.
Stunned by the ignorance. This is not greenwashing. They are making some modest changes to encourage recycling, what’s wrong with that?
lauram on April 27 at 11:32 a.m.
Yes, STA needs to stop charging for rides.
RussNobbs on April 29 at 12:32 a.m.
This is definitely not greenwashing. It’s a valid attempt to reduce the amount of trash produced by the event. Last year most of the paper cups were collected and composted. We’ll do the same this year plus collect water bottles and any can in the clear bag recycling containers used at many events.
In the Corporate cup tent all cups, plates and food scraps will be collected for composting through the “Clean Green” process that now accepts grease stained pizza boxes at home.
At the race beginning and at the end we’ll have the clear bag recycling containers set up so runners and walkers can recycle those bottles and keep them out of the trash.
These are the same containers I’ve used at Artfest for several years and that we use at Hoopfest, Pig Out and many street fairs.
Expect to see more opportunities to collect recyclables and food waste for compost at more and more events as Spokane learns how simple it is to do public event recycling.