I hate littering and I hate the people that do it even more.

Having done a lot of racing over numerous distances I’ve seen quite a lot of littering and for me it’s one of the factors that ruins a race, in the endurance arena you tend to see it less thankfully but I wonder what other people’s opinions are?

In the last year I’ve seen three specific instances of rubbish being thrown onto the ground by a runner, twice I failed to act as the runner was too far ahead of me and also someone I had once considered a friend (and felt uncomfortable mentioning it) but in third occasion I was running near enough to complain to the runner and request they pick up their rubbish and carry it to the nearest bin.

There was a difference in the rubbish being thrown away too, the first two occasions it was the same runner and she threw onto different courses banana skins, biodegradable but still, in my opinion, rubbish and should have been carried to the next CP and deposited there. As one of these instances was under race conditions she should probably have been disqualified but given it was a first ultra I didn’t want to ruin her day, but races have rules for a reason, no littering in my opinion is there to show respect for your environment and the route.

Did I pick it up though on her behalf? If I didn’t have such an aversion (to the point of phobia) to the smell and texture of banana I would have picked it up myself but I didn’t and nor do I generally stop racing to clear up running little. Does this complaining about littering therefore make me a hypocrite? I’m not sure.

Then there was the second offender who simply threw to the floor a Clif Shot Bloks plastic wrapper. I pulled ahead as I was looking after the back end of the event and reminded him of his responsibility, he duly turned around and picked up the offending item without complaint. However, had he taken offence it would have made the following 19 hours of running a little uncomfortable.

Rubbish on the trail is something I look out for as I believe it’s inexcusable. Mostly our trails are clear of rubbish especially on events – being a middle of the pack runner and never going that quickly means I get to see the trail in all its glory and on glorious trails you notice if someone has been causing mess. 

Races such as the Green Man, Skye Trail Ultra, Ranscombe and many others are beautifully clear and the runners respect the route but there are races such as the UTMB ones, my experience of the CCC for example, was that litter on the course was rife and while the organisers do their best to ensure that during and post race the trails are cleared it is sad to me that some, small minority, don’t give these beautiful routes the respect they deserve.

As I’ve pointed out, in the endurance arena, the problem is  significantly less than in the shorter distance races where roads can become strewn with gel wrappers becoming really quite sticky (thinking of you mile 16 Liverpool marathon 2012) and of course there’s the original running litter – the empty bottle.

I’ve witnessed runners depositing their half drunk bottles of water deep into the nearest bush rather than in a bin or by the roadside near the checkpoint – this makes the job of the volunteers/marshals that much harder when clearing away race debris.

So why do it? And what’s the solution?

Most races already have an immediate DQ for littering but it does still happen – I’d be interested to know if anyone has ever been disqualified for littering. Perhaps runners need to take more responsibility on the trail for both themselves and other runners, being willing to draw attention to someone else’s misdemeanour – but that’s not an easy thing to do as I know from experience. So is there a different solution, perhaps better education about the effect of litter, more eyes on the route? 

So have you ever seen a runner littering either in training or an event and did you say something? Would you say something? And do you have a solution to those that do litter above and beyond the DQ?