Trail of Plastic

Have you ever wondered how much plastic factors into your runs?

Here's my average running checklist:

• Sunglasses

• Sun cream and lip balm

• Hydration backpack

• Quick-dry shirt, sports bra, and shorts

• Socks and shoes

• Smart watch and phone

All of the above are plastic or have plastic in their formulations. Plastics are made up of petroleum-based polymers, which are large molecules. Consider water. It’s a small molecule made up of three atoms: two hydrogen and one oxygen (H0). But a polymer - let’s take for example polyethylene terephthalate (CHO) – has repeating chains of 10,000 to 100,000 atoms per molecule.