What are opinions on this:

Events company organising a triathlon in Snowdonia have left biodegradable orange paint and route flags out. They have defended their actions on Facebook saying it will wear off.

Personally as a user of the fells and organiser of events on it, I think this is very poor form! Although I was surprised how split opinion was from the Fell Runners Association facebook page

If it is biodegradable and comes off I don’t see the issue at all personally.

Paint not so bad, makers with poles – inexcusable

proper* fell-runners don’t need markers, they’ve got the route memorised after a quick glance in it’s direction at the sign-on hut.

(*duffers like me just try and follow them)

my opinion? – that’s not on, leave nothing but footprints etc.

There’s a running event, the “Farnham Pligrim”, near me which use spray paint on gates/styles etc. I guess it’s biodegradeable but it seems to last over 12 months. I’d prefer that they use removeable signage personally (and clear them up after the event 🙂 ), perhaps they’re afraid the signs would get tampered with.

its not on.

edited: whats the point.

you’ve never walked in europe have you?

Why doesn’t it surprise me that it’s a triathlon company involved?

This sort of shit really gets my goat. It’s not so much the stuff being left there but the presumption that it’s OK.

Did you check how much the entrants paid? Bet it wasn’t a cheap grassroots event, from the look of that tape.

Annoys me – had discussions with organisers on Runners World before. Leave no traces….simple

Quite a few old signs littering Surrey Hills and Punchbowl over the past few weeks. 🙁

If it is biodegradable and comes off I don’t see the issue at all personally.

Biodegradable’s a pretty broad church. They could be gone next week or they could still be hanging around next year. The biodegradable paint gets used on road for lots of running events and is often still visible months later.

Personally I’d say that constitutes litter and they should be removing it.

Noticed a bit of it round our way just lately. Not sure who’s responsible though.

Wow 70 quid for the full slateman tri.

biodegradeable? but if i throw a banana skin or apple core im satan incarnate

banana skin = not biodegradable in the UK (so I’m told by local NT warden; nothing degrades it here and they take 6 years to go away
apple core = biodegradable

I suppose it depends upon how quickly it’s biodegradable. More than a week of wet weather and I guess you should sort it.

Not on, shows a complete lack of respect to the environment and to other users. Personally i don’t think the use of paint should be allowed at all. Even if it’s gone after a week, it’s a week too long and for £70 a pop they should be cleaning up after themselves.

My expectation of cleaning up would be the signs going up no more than a day ahead of the event and being removed no more than a day after.

edit
Apple cores, banana skins. I wouldn’t drop them either, if I managed to carry an apple or banana in with me then I can carry the remnants back out again, it’s no hardship.

It is not acceptable in my opinion. We live on a crowded island, and leaving rubbish or paint around on open, public, ‘natural’ spaces is not acceptable. It is lazyness.
Perhaps someone should go and spray the organisers house in orange arrows and dump all the markers all over their garden? 😉

banana skin = not biodegradable in the UK (so I’m told by local NT warden; nothing degrades it here and they take 6 years to go away

Total bollocks – how many mint condition banana skins have you seen popping out of the bottom of compost bins or on the fells?

Painting on the rock is a bit out of order IMO, round here if they use paint they just spray the arrow on the ground (grass or dirt), and that goes pretty quickly. Although more often than not the arrows are sawdust.

Flags should definitely be cleared away bit I can also see how 1 or 2 get missed.

don’t drop banana skins apparently

Totally Not On.

I’m getting sick of all the signage in my bit of the South Downs TBH. Wiggle/Southern Sportive hold masses of events there and they quite happily plot signage all over before the event, ohhh then “forget” to take it down afterwards.
Gitz.

Now it’s not just them, all sorts of events do the same down there, getting like it’s some disused F1 track.

No wonder Horse riders/Walkers and other users/people who live there get annoyed with us lot.

Piss boiling, thats what it is to me. 😈

how many mint condition banana skins have you seen popping out of the bottom of compost bins or on the fells?

Well they go brown but then they do hang around for a long time, they’re not very noticeable most of the time but if you look for them on top of a popular fell you’ll see dozens.

That article confirms my belief that chewing gum is actually satan’s bogies.

You said six years! (begrudgingly takes point though) that said if you drop a stick it’d take years to totally breakdown, a banana skin will just be dark brown fibrous matter within a couple of weeks and wont do any lasting damage. In high use areas though, as well as the tp of fells where the temperature’s low I concede it may get pretty unsightly

a banana skin will just be dark brown fibrous matter within a couple of weeks and wont do any lasting damage. In high use areas though, as well as the tp of fells where the temperature’s low I concede it may get pretty unsightly

And here is the problem.
What IS acceptable, or not acceptable? One persons values are different from another. If someone says ‘it is OK, but only here, and hidden’, I can see the nuance and thought being missed by the next person.
For me this is why I have moved to leaving nothing bar pee and hidden poops. Then, when someone asks, the answer is a clear, sustainable and strong ‘we take in out with us’.

edit: and you don’t see how much litter is collected off the hills by others. I usually have a bag on my pack when I am out, and collect all sorts. Last jaunt up ickle Dumyat here saw me fill a 30ltr rucsac. But as far as the last walker who left an orange skin (And complete set of Disney party balloons at the summit) was aware it has ‘decomposed.

Not on in my book. I do a lot of events and take pride in the site/course being clean from anything after. That spray lasts bloody ages and should be used sparingly, in fact we only use it where we have to to conform to BC? Don’t get me started on tape and zip ties…

According to their facebook page, the paint has been removed.

I was going to say I’ve done my share of litter picks but I haven’t just lately (or even remotely lately thinking about it). Anyway, my banana skins aren’t the bad guy here!

I’ve been climbing and walking in British mountains for 51 years and never seen anybody do that. In Britain the code is that the mountaineer finds their own way, it’s a mountain skill. Fell-runners don’t do it; they use flags for short events but on big mountain events it’s up to the runner to navigate. This looks like a consequence of the fashion for sanitised endurance events and it’s a risk-averse European habit.

And it’s not bio-degradable paint, it’s water-based.

Paint on rocks doesn’t bother me, or the ecosystem, just some uppity walkery types! If it is going to fade to nothing that’s good enough and I wouldn’t be moaning at them to go scrubbing. Is it any different to bird poo? That’s one species having an impact on the visual appearance of the wilderness as well isn’t it? Organisers are usually volunteers remember.

Flags/sticks, there should be no question they should be removed after an event.

There’s a running event, the “Farnham Pligrim”, near me which use spray paint on gates/styles etc. I guess it’s biodegradeable but it seems to last over 12 months. I’d prefer that they use removeable signage personally (and clear them up after the event ), perhaps they’re afraid the signs would get tampered with.

A few years back I had a run in with the bloke doing the spraying for this event. He had five tubes of the spray and was intent on using it everywhwere. It takes longer than 12 months to wash off, and even then on a rough surface it doesn’t. There were many complaints to the organisers in Seale and Sands, which were ignoired. I believe Bill at Hampton Estate has now demanded they use something that can be removed within a week.

Even worse offenders, in my book, are the CTC who arranged/sponsored/ organised an off road sportive in the same area. They never bothered to remove the direction signs, Little blue ones with “CTC Cyclists Touring Club” proudly emblazoned on them. 5 years later I still occasionally find them in distant places…

Everyone else (and there’s usually something most weekends) manages to clear up after themselves.

It’s not on!

It’s not their bl**dy mountain to go painting arrows on, biodegradeable paint or not! What if everyone did the same? There’d be more arrows than Custer’s worst nightmare. If there is uncertainty about the route put a stick with an arrow on it, or station a marshal there (assuming navigation is not part of the competition 🙄 )

…And of course, anything that they put out for the event (poles, flags, drinks, paper cups) should be collected up and taken away, along with every last speck of litter dropped by competitors or spectators! 😡

The “organisers” are making money out of people by staging the event, so must be held to account for clearing up afterwards (somehow).

The ‘take only photographs, leave only footprints’ thing should be absolute – and footprints do enough damage, anyway.

What are opinions on this:

Is it just one or two left by accident or lots?

There are three things that are ok to leave in the countryside. Apple cores, bogies and wee. Everything else comes home.

Wrong.

Very wrong.

The paint is ok – it’ll degrade, but what’s with leaving the fing flags out?? That’s just bloody lazy!

More to the point, there’s enough folks out on the hills nowadays who’d quite easily mistake these flags for signposts..

Is it any different to bird poo? That’s one species having an impact on the visual appearance of the wilderness as well isn’t it?

Dumbest thing I’ve seen today and I’m a school teacher so you’re up against some stiff competition.

A banana degraded quite well in my laptop bag 😛

You can leave hedge porn too.

I’ve seen those too and EMailed CTC with locations of where the signs were left. They didn’t take any action.

Banana skins and apple cores don’t bother me if chucked away from the trail, they do degrade whether in the countryside, or in a hole in the ground that YOU don’t care about. But these signs and paint do compromise the natural beauty of our wild places the instant you see them, unlike a bit of fruit skin in the undergrowth. Rights of way signs by contrast are a necessity but are pretty subtle in their execution. I enjoy the odd sportive, but would be reluctant to use the same organisation again if I thought signs weren’t being removed after the event as part of my entry fee.
I will apologise now for leaving a banana skin at the entrance to Lands End visitor centre yesterday though, I got distracted by a chap asking me to photograph him and his family, and was a mile or two away before I remembered.

The reply below has just been posted on UKC by a user who emailed the events company. It seems to be suggesting that there was just one arrow and tape left out by accident. I’d got the impression that it was more than that?

Hi,

Many thanks for your comments. The rock has now been cleaned (within
an hour of it being brought to our attention).

We have issued a statement (which I’ve copied below). The arrow was
missed in the first instance and we hope people can appreciate it was
a genuine mistake, and will not happen again.

Here’s the statement that we released on Monday:-

“Firstly, we clear our routes directly behind the last cyclists and
runners. All arrows, canes and tape are removed in this manner so that
they are not in place longer than needed after the event. Obviously,
on this occasion we have missed a cane and for this we apologise. I’m
sure you appreciate human error happens sometimes. However, to put
this in perspective there were hundreds of arrows, canes and safety
signs along the cycle and run route of the Snowman Triathlon, which
were removed by event staff on the day of the event. We also do an
additional sweep in the days following the event.

We have a robust route marking and course safety policy. In addition
to numerous marshals who are provided with a significant reward
policy, we use a mixture of arrows, canes and in some instances
temporary chalk based biodegradable paint. We have had a number of
instances recently whereby our signs and course markings have been
stolen. This causes a huge safety issue and therefore we must mark our
routes in a way which negates against this. We take any tampering of
our routes extremely seriously as it poses an unacceptable risk to our
participants and the general public and as such all instances are
investigated thoroughly.

We are conscious of the beautiful environments in which we hold our
events and have a strong environmental policy, which includes
anti-littering. We have actually disqualified competitors at previous
events who have been seen littering, so this is how seriously we take
the issue. To note a few things, we invest heavily in recyclable cups,
use eco-friendly dual fuel vehicles, use toggles to put up branding
instead of cable ties where possible and use local providers to cut
down on our carbon footprint. Furthermore, as you are probably aware
our staff are all lovers of the outdoors and are proud to champion the
beauty of North Wales as much as anyone.

We are local company that bring thousands of people to the beautiful
area of North Wales that contribute many millions to the local
economy. In addition we have a very strong policy on employing local
people that know how important it is that we keep the area beautiful.
Hopefully this has answered/reassured most/some of you. If any of you
still feel you have any unanswered questions please feel free to pop
into the AAH Store/headoffice in Llangefni where we will happily talk
through your concerns.”

Kind regards

AAHE Team