Press Release - London Marathon - 3/13/24

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

          London Marathon Events to work with the Salvation Army 
               to repurpose discarded clothing from events     

London Marathon Events (LME) will be working with the Salvation Army 
Trading Company, the trading arm of The Salvation Army, to collect 
discarded participant clothing at its events. 

Salvation Army volunteers will collect clothing discarded by participants 
prior to the Start Lines of all the major LME mass participation events. 
The clothing will be taken to The Salvation Army processing centre in the 
East Midlands for sorting and distribution to be resold, reused or 
recycled.  

The scheme is one of LME's new sustainability initiatives for 2024 aimed at 
reducing the environmental impact of its events, with a particular focus on 
lowering carbon emissions, cutting waste and improving circularity. 

Kate Chapman, Head of Sustainability at LME, said: “We are fully committed 
to reducing our environmental impact and we're working to introduce more 
initiatives every year to achieve this. Depending on the weather 
conditions, on some occasions many thousands of participants in our events 
will discard clothing as they move towards the Start line. Our new 
partnership with The Salvation Army means this clothing will be collected, 
sorted, sent for resale and reuse, or – if no longer in a condition to be 
reused, reprocessed through their innovative “Fibersort" technology which 
creates more opportunities for garments to be repurposed and diverted from 
landfill or incineration."  

Richard Shea, Service Development Manager at Salvation Army Trading Company 
Ltd said: "We're delighted to work alongside London Marathon Events, 
aligning our shared commitment to supporting the environment by utilising 
our textile innovations to repurpose unwanted clothing across a number of 
events this year." 

The Salvation Army volunteers will be collecting discarded clothing at the 
following events this year: 

- Brighton Marathon on 7 April 
- TCS London Marathon on 21 April 
- Ford RideLondon on Sunday 26 May 
- The Big Half on 1 September 
- The Vitality London 10,000 on 22 September 
- The Royal Parks Half on 13 October 

One of LME's long-term objectives is to help drive positive change in 
environmental sustainability through its own actions and inspire its 
stakeholders and partners to do the same. More information on environmental 
sustainability at LME's events can be found here. 

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