The London Marathon took place on 28th April this year and it is an amazing event that is broadcast worldwide. I, Julie, have run 5 London Marathons, my first being in 2005. The spirit and emotion behind the day is beautiful. When you see people running who are vision impaired, running 42km with a disability or doing so for a loved one it's a special, special time and incredibly emotional - the power of camaraderie is wonderful as you encourage others to put one front in front of the other, especially in those final few kms.
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But....the environmental footprint of a marathon is not great. There are thousands of water bottles handed out and sports gel packs. Runners take them, drink a bit then throw the rest to the side of the road. Wasteful on so many counts but it's crucial people stay hydrated. It was fantastic to see The London Marathon has taken steps to changing this. This year their sports drinks came in edible seaweed pouches, the seaweed capsules can be bitten to release the liquid inside and eventually entirely consumed, or if the runner prefers not to eat the seaweed film it can be discarded where it will break down in 4 to 6 weeks. These seaweed pouches replaced over 200,000 sports drink bottles.
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They still used plastic water bottles and these bottles were being collected and recycled to produce more bottles. Clearly the ideal is no bottles or all seaweed pouches but this is an amazing step forward and shows the power of innovation.
We might not have seaweed pouches here yet but you can find out more about the innovation here and also shop our huge range of 'On The Go Reusables' including bottles, straws, cutlery and plenty more.
