Water fountains, eco-cups… The 20 km of Paris say goodbye to plastic bottles

The 46th edition, which takes place on Sunday, is the first Parisian race where single-use plastic is prohibited. Such a measure represents a logistical challenge and a financial cost for the organizers.

Thirty thousand runners will take to the streets of downtown Paris on Sunday, October 13, during the Vredestein 20 km. A slightly different 46th edition: no plastic water bottles will be distributed to participants at refreshment points. The consequence of the measure taken a few days ago by the Paris town hall to ban single-use plastic for all running races.

A race like the 20 km of Paris represented 150 000 small bottles of water distributed to runners. The Paris town hall therefore put an end to it, leaving it up to the organizers, with the help of the city, to find an alternative. “We have planned water fountains at four refreshment points and also ecocups which will be pre-filled by the volunteersexplains Didier Eck, the boss of the 20 km. These are water fountains that will have a rapid flow, so runners will arrive with their containers and will only have to press the fountain buttons. There will be enough fountains so that there will be no queues.”

The town hall has already been considering such a ban for three years, with the ambition of removing the 20 tons of plastic waste just from running errands. There are more than a hundred each year in the capital. For sports assistant Pierre Rabadan, it’s the right time, as a symbol of the legacy of the Olympic Games : “We wanted to give the organizers time to integrate this new situation into the organization of the races. We know that for certain organizations, most of them associations, were also financed by ore carriers.”

But removing the bottles and replacing them with other devices has a cost: for this test phase, the city of Paris is helping the organizers. But afterwards, they will have to find other resources, which represents for example 90 000 euros extra for the 20 km.

“Either we will try to increase our panel of partners to participate. Otherwise it will be the price of the bib which will suffer a little. We may have to increase it by three euros in the coming years.”

Didier Eck, president of the “Vredestein 20 km”

at franceinfo

Didier Eck adds: “We have already done a lot in terms of eco-responsibility, with a system for recovering water bottles and their recycling. We also have two employees on this theme alone.”

For Manon Richert, from the Zéro Waste France association, this is a first positive step. But she asks to go further and not only in running races. “France is committed to a path to phasing out single-use plastic by 2040recalls Manon Richert. Today, the measures taken are clearly not enough to achieve this objective. So we need banning measures to go further, and which are not limited to sporting events.” Other races abroad have already taken the plunge, such as in Brussels, San Francisco or Geneva, with success.