Samsung Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swim reduces plastic when Hongkonger approaches with checklist of green credentials
Doug Woodring uses his position as an environmental activist to encourage change from one of the world’s leading open water swimming events.
When Doug Woodring swam in the Samsung Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swim last year as an invited VIP, it was clear to him the organisers had put little thought into waste management.
“You could tell they just didn’t plan for the waste at all,” he said. “There was garbage all over the floor.”
But Woodring leveraged his position as an invitee and founder of Ocean Recovery Alliance to change the organisers’ ways.
The Cross-Continental Swim is one of the largest open water swimming events in the world. Up to 2,400 swimmers from 50 countries swim from the European to the Asian side of Istanbul.
After 2017, Woodring gave the organisers a checklist he named the Plastic Disclosure Project (PDP), which included headings like “can plastic items be replaced or substituted with something more sustainable”.