Jody Serrano
Editor in chiefEditor in Chief at Xataka On. Before joining Webedia, I was a tech reporter at Gizmodo and The Messenger. While I've covered all sorts of things related to technology, I'm specialized in writing about social media, Internet culture, Twitch, and streamers.
During big races, there’s nearly always an unforgettable sight at the end. I’m not talking about the faces of the runners once they cross the finish line, but rather the battlefield of empty plastic cups they leave in their wake at water stations.
It’s not pretty. While organizers can’t exactly stop providing water to participants, a new startup claims that they may be able to reduce the waste they generate.
The idea. Back in 2019, Kristina Smithe had an epiphany while she was drinking coffee in Florida. She had just come back from running the California International Marathon and decided to count the plastic, disposable cups she had used to drink coffee and water on the plane. Then, she added the cups she had used to drink water during the race.
In total, Smithe realized she had used six plastic cups over two days—and that all of them had ended up in the trash.
What really jarred her, though, was multiplying the number of cups she had consumed during the race and multiplying them by the number of other runners. With 9,000 runners and 17,000 water stations, she estimated that roughly 150,000 plastic cups had been used once and then thrown away.
“I was just shocked that, even in California, it’s not sustainable,” Smithe said in a recent interview with the Associated Press.
Hiccup Earth. That’s how Smithe got the idea for Hiccup Earth, a company that rents out reusable silicon cups to races that can be washed after the event and then reused.
The concept is the same as with traditional plastic or paper cups. Hiccup’s products are filled with water and then given out to runners at different stations by race volunteers. After quenching their thirst, runners deposit the cups in designated bins to that Smithe can collect them and wash them afterwards.
The numbers. Today, Hiccup has a set of 70,000 cups that it rents out to race organizers throughout the U.S. Her products have been used by roughly 37 races and prevented about 902,000 plastic cups from ending up in landfills.
As far as washing goes, that process is also sustainable. Smithe points out that she only needs 30 gallons of water to wash 1,500 cups using her washing process. In comparison, an average, efficient home dishwasher uses 3 to 5 gallons of water to clean a lot less dishes.
The cost of being sustainable. It’s not always cheap to be sustainable, though. Disposable plastic cups are cheaper, costing a few cents each, when compared than Smithe’s product, which run for .15 cents for 10,000 cups. The price per cup drops if the organizer orders more.
That was one of questions Smithe was asked when she appeared on Shark Tank earlier this year. While none of the sharks ended up investing in her business, they advised her to seek out a corporate sponsor to bring down the price per cup and make it more appealing to potential customers.
Bottom line. Smithe may not have convinced the sharks, but she’s still moving forward with her goal to eliminate cup waste at races. Back when she was first getting her business off the ground, she would email race directors to ask them if they used disposable cups.
“The answer was always yes,” she said. In turn, Smithe had an answer for them: “If you’re looking for a sustainable solution, I have one.”
Image | Ron Lach
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