The Irish Life Dublin Marathon is committed to the continued review and implementation of sustainability strategies and environmentally friendly practices throughout the race in Dublin this October.

Sustainability management has become an increasingly important consideration for the Irish Life Dublin Marathon organising committee, and we have introduced new measures this year to address sustainability concerns and ensure we are setting high standards for such a large public event. These new measures include:

• Goodie bags; the Irish Life Dublin Marathon goodie bags used to distribute items to participants after each race in the Irish Life Race Series will be biodegradable, recyclable and reusable.
• Baggage bags; the baggage bags used by runners to store their clothing during the marathon will be made from Oxo-degradable plastic for the first time.
• Bottles; at present, about 10% of the bottles deployed on race day are recycled, and the remainder are used as fuel for power stations. This year, extra clean-up teams will be in place to collect bottles from the course in a timely manner, with support from the relevant local authorities. This will result in 0% of the bottles from the event ending up in a landfill.
• Thornton Recycling; we will also employ the professional services of Thornton’s recycling to assist with the clean-up.  Thorntons will increase the number of collection bins by 300% this year to enable the collection of clean bottles. The unused bottles are donated to local running clubs for their races.
• At each of our events, Thorntons will provide Colour Coded bins to enable the Segregation of recyclable streams, including paper, cardboard, plastics, cardboard, and all organics for composting and further diversion from landfills.
• All clothes discarded at the start will be collected by Liberty charity and re-used.
• Race instructions and registration materials will be digital, not printed.
• Not all race numbers will be printed as we expect a drop off from the figures entered, so less waste of excess numbers.
• All branding material, banners and scrim will be collected and reused.
• All generators used will be fitted with either Exhaust Gas Recirculation or a Diesel Particular filter, depending on the size of the Generator.
• All leftover Goodie Bags from the finish of the Irish Life Dublin Marathon will be collected and used by Simon Community.
• Lucozade Sport will be trialling fully compostable cups at this year’s marathon as part of their plans to drive sustainability at mass-participation sporting events.

The Irish Life Dublin Marathon has an ongoing focus on sustainability management for its Race Series, which is integrated into our long-term strategy for the continued success of this event.

Additional information on the Irish Life Race Series:

For the Irish Life Race Series, we will expand our highly popular Bike Parking available at all events. To reduce the car journeys, we will have shuttle bus transfers from the local train station to and from the events. Eco-sustainability, routes in green and pedestrianised areas or with low impact for vehicular circulation are used in all events. The Fingal 10K starts and finishes in Swords. The Frank Duffy 10-mile and Half Marathon are run within Europe’s largest enclosed park, the Phoenix Park.

The Irish Life Dublin Marathon organising committee is highly committed to setting sustainability standards that are world-class and, in doing so, is setting a road for other event organisers to follow.