Tour de France Urged to End Plastic Freebies

The corporate ‘caravan’ that motors across valleys and mountains ahead of the cyclists competing in the Tour de France has been a crowd-pleaser for decades, but ecologists want organisers to put an end to the avalanche of plastics it generates during the event.

What sponsor offer?

Every day of the Tour, the event’s corporate sponsors cover the route in a column of open-backed trucks that stretches for kilometers, throwing out snacks, drinks, t-shirts, keyrings and other objects, many of them made or wrapped in plastic. By the time this year’s event ended on the Champs-Elysees boulevard in Paris on Sunday, 15 million freebies wiould have been tossed to the crowds. A few years ago it was 18 million, but environmentalists say the “Tour de Plastic” has to do more.

‘Action required’

“The giving away of ‘goodies’ has to be totally rethought. The ecological emergency demands action,” says Green party lawmaker Francois-Michel Lambert who is one of 30 legislators who, together with six charities including Zero Waste France and Surfrider Foundation Europe, wrote an open letter to the Tour’s organisers calling for action.