The numbers from the Baltimore Running Festival are in from the folks at Corrigan Sports:

--They collected 3.7 tons, or 7,440 pounds, of single stream recycled items such as bottles.

--They collected 1.1 tons, or 2,020 pounds, of compostable items such as cups and banana peels.

That's a lot of trash diverted from the landfill. They say they are happy with the numbers, which will serve as a baseline for future festivals. 

The efforts to collect the refuse from some 20,000 runners were aided by event sponsors Aquafina, which offered bottles that uses 50 percent less plastic at the event, and Under Armour, which handed out race shirts to participants that were made from 100 percent recycled materials.

They were also aided by a big group of volunteers and everyone who participated in the day's events: a marathon, half marathon, 5K and relay. Pretty amazing that people can run that far and still manage to toss their cup in the right bin.

So, did you help the effort? Think they labelled the bins well enough? What should the organizers do next year?

Baltimore Sun photo from the marathon/Kim Hairston