Veolia scores “personal best” for plastic clean-up at this year’s London Marathon

29 Apr 2019 --- This year Veolia’s London Marathon clean up delivered a “personal best” for recycling, with over 350,000 plastic bottles collected for reprocessing, and seeing the streets in the City of London, Westminster and Tower Hamlets safely reopened within six hours.

The 26.2 mile race route passed through six London boroughs. Veolia managed the swift clear up operation for three of them, making up the largest portion of the event’s clean up task.

Veolia and City of London Corporation focus on getting the thousands of plastic bottles used by runners over the finishing line to be recycled.Veolia cleared all streets north of the River Thames including the City of London, Westminster and Tower Hamlets, where they deliver street cleansing, recycling and waste collections on behalf of the three Local Authorities.

Across the three locations, Veolia deployed over 40 vehicles and 120 staff and, based on the results from previous years, expects to have cleared over 350,000 plastic bottles from the race course.

All of the plastic bottles collected for recycling support the delivery of a sustainable solution for the Marathon and a clear win for London’s resources.

“The London Marathon is one of the most famous long-distance running events in the world. We’re proud to be recycling so many plastic bottles in the Square Mile, and this year we are rolling out 10 new water refill points, bringing the total to 17. Together, alongside London’s local authorities, we can all play our part in reducing the use of plastic - shaping the environmental legacy we want to leave behind,” says Jeremy Simons, Chair of the City of London Corporation’s Environmental Services Committee.