Thanks to our friends at Athletes for a Fit Planet, we are stepping up our commitment to make this year's Santa to the Sea event more eco-friendly. We hope you'll join us in our efforts to reduce our environmental footprint.

For the second year now, Santa to the Sea has taken the FitPlanet Pledge of Sustainability. We are the first of over 300 races to commit to implement all 28 green initiatives.

Recycling and Composting- In an effort to minimize our landfill waste we will be recycling all our plastics, paper, and cardboard, and composting all our food waste. We have teamed up with Republic Services, Inc., who is the leading provider of environmental services including solid waste collection, transfer, disposal and recycling services in the City of Oxnard. We have also partnered with Agromin, who will be taking our paper cups, grinding them into fine shards and mixing them into garden mulch.

At the race we will have special recycling centers which will have designated bins for items that you will be disposing. At all these recycling centers we will have a Green Team Volunteer who will make sure everything will be disposed of properly and go into the right bin.

Bring your old shoes. Clean out your closet and bring your old shoes to the registration booth at both our expos. Our shoe recycling partner, Road Runner Sports, accepts all used and old running shoes which will then be donated to Sole Purpose who distributes them to the homeless.

Reducing and Reusing- Here are a few more things we are doing to reduce our environmental footprint:

-100% of our registration is online, which dramatically reduces our paper use

-All runners get a reusable goodie bags at packet pick up

-Eco-friendly technical race shirt made from recycled water bottles

-We'll be serving fresh local and organic food at the finish

-Using paper cups instead of disposable plastic water bottles at the finish

-Providing eco-friendly portable toilets

Lowering our Carbon Footprint- Every mile you drive produces about a pound of CO2. Here are a few things we are doing to reduce the race's CO2 emissions:

-Ride Share. Save gas and reduce your carbon footprint by carpooling. Carpoolers will get VIP treatment when it comes to parking at the race. Don't have a friend to drive with? No problem. Find a ride and make new friends through the Santa to the Sea PickupPal site. It's only for registered participants and friends and families.

Bike Valet Parking. Save gas and reduce the hassle of parking by riding your bike to the race. We'll have a secure parking area for bicycles.

Eco-Friendly Shuttle Buses. We will be purchasing green tags to offset the carbon emissions.

Eco-Friendly Race Vehicles. Our official pace car will be a Toyota Prius.

Join our Green Team of volunteers. Not racing Santa to the Sea this year? You can get involved by volunteering for our Green Team to help with the recycling effort at the race. For more information contact Elisa at volunteer@santatothesea.com.