Close to 15,000 competitors from 54 countries hit the pavements in the Auckland Marathon. Video / Supplied
Auckland Marathon organisers say they're determined to be sustainable despite a small number of plastic ties left strewn on part of the course yesterday.
Age was no barrier either with the iconic event - which stretches from North Shore to Auckland city - bringing together those aged between 5 and 85 years old.
Kohimarama local Colin Weir didn't participate in the marathon, but while out walking about 4pm, after the event, he was disappointed to find plastic cable ties left underneath street signs which had earlier displayed signs for racegoers.
As he continued on towards Mission Bay, he found more and more becoming increasingly frustrated as he walked on.
"I go for a walk around the waterfront most afternoons about 4pm and I come down to Kohi beach and start walking around to Mission Bay.
"They've had all these signs up on the lamp posts saying how many kilometres they've got to go and what they've done is they've just ripped them all off the posts and left all the plastic ties everywhere, all the way from Kohi beach to Mission Bay I picked up about 40 of these plastic ties."
Adding to the frustration was the fact many were left lying near drains which empty straight out into the sea.
Weir, an avid boatie who is continually annoyed at seeing plastic rubbish floating in the ocean, went home and got his partner and together they spent the next 90 minutes picking them all up.
One of the plastic cable ties lies underneath a street post on the Auckland Marathon's route. Photo / Colin Weir
"They just go straight down the drain or they get tangled up with the birds."
He said rubbish stands out as there was often not a lot around.
"It's bloody good around there. There's all locals that walk round there all the time and there's no rubbish round there at all and the next thing we have this marathon around there, and that's fine and they seem to have cleaned up, but it's just all these plastic ties everywhere.
"They've re-done all the waterfront and embedded in the concrete is 'no waste flows out to sea' because it goes straight down to the harbour."
Weir said he's lived in the Bays area all his life.
"I'm a boatie and I just get sick of all this plastic in the sea. You see a hell of a lot out there on the water and a lot on the beaches. I'm picking up plastic all the time.
"The worst are the smokers on the beach who stub out on the cigarettes and push them under the sand and then you get all the filters in the water."
IRONMAN Oceania managing director Dave Beeche said the waste was likely generated from the event however he expected that it would have been collected as part of the final check which took place yesterday and today.
A Kohimarama man says he found about 30 of the plastic cable ties while out walking between his local beach and Mission Bay. Photo / Colin Weir
"Ironman Oceania is committed to a robust sustainability plan, a key part of which is post-event clean-up of any race waste, whether it is directly related to the event itself or not.
"This applies to any event under our management, not just the ASB Auckland Marathon."
Beeche said their race director led the course sweep today to ensure they removed "any impact or footprint of the race".
"This is normal practice at all of our events to work closely with all of our stakeholders, participants and contractors to remove any impact we have made on the environment."
One of its goals had been phase out the use of plastic ties. Ironman Oceania had ordered 15,000 reusable toggles for use at its events in 2019, 6000 of which were used in the Auckland Marathon.
"Ironman Oceania continues to investigate environmentally friendly and reusable alternatives to all plastic cable ties but has already removed thousands of these ties from our events and mitigated their impact on the environment," he said.
