Culligan, which will operate the personal-refill stations for the Chicago Marathon, is a company founded in the United States in 1936, operating in more than 90 countries, with over 22 million water-purification systems in use and serving more than 170 million consumers annually.Culligan’s partnership with the Chicago Marathon dates back to 2024, and in March 2025 they reached a long-term agreement.Chicago Marathon race director Carey Pinkowski said:"Sustainability has long been one of our core focus areas, and introducing on-course refill stations represents an important next step。”
—the personal refill stations will usehigh-capacity activated-carbon filtration systems，—this is not simply a matter of adding a few taps,it links brand exposure to athletes’ actual race behavior, while also reducing the use of disposable cups.
But it also brings new operational challenges, for example:
How fast will the water flow? How should queuing times be managed? What about congestion in the refill zones? Are the containers compliant? How will hygiene and safety be ensured?
Moreover, reductions in waste, service capacity and actual adoption rates have not yet been published, so the practical effectiveness at scale remains the organizers’ claim rather than a verified result.At this year’s Paris Marathon, the organizerscompletely eliminated disposable paper cups and plastic bottles at aid stations — an apparently very green decision — but not everyone “bought it”; some runners expressed dissatisfaction, and course congestion did indeed occur.The Chicago Marathon’s move isn’t that radical, but these four personal-hydration aid stations could have a significant impact on the future development of marathon events.
Impact on domestic marathons
Large marathons in China commonly rely on fixed paper-cup or plastic-cup water stations.For a typical large domestic marathon with 30,000 participants, if each runner uses 5 disposable paper cups per race, total consumption would reach 150,000.Disposable items—plastic ponchos, paper cups, drink bottles, cooling sponges—are widely used during events, not only damaging the course environment but also placing a heavy cleanup burden on event staff.In fact, some domestic races have been experimenting with alternatives to disposable cups:The 2025 Huizhou Marathon launched the “One Cup for the Whole Race · Zero Waste” campaign, distributing reusable eco-cups free to 988 runners and pledging not to use disposable paper cups during the event.The Xiamen Marathon replaced disposable plastic cups with biodegradable cups.The 2026 Yangzhou Half Marathon distributed 1,000 eco stainless-steel drinking cups for free before the race, encouraging runners to bring their cups to on-course aid stations.But these attempts still rely mainly on organizers providing reusable or biodegradable cups uniformly, and have not formed a full “runners bring their own hydration gear + fixed-course refilling” model.The Chicago Marathon’s experiment happens to provide a reference for domestic races.In fact, if a personal-hydration-gear model is introduced,runners would no longer rely on single-use bottled water, but would also face a series of issues:1. Traditional bottled-water brands’ on-course sponsorship rights would face a fundamental challenge.
2. Organizers would also need to address competition rules, security checks, start corrals, aid-station width, and conflicts between sponsor categories.3. Water-purification, outdoor-hydration, and eco-material brands would gain new on-course rights.So behind this new environmental measure lies a major reshuffle of commercial interests.
The Chicago Marathon will hold its 48th edition on October 11, 2026, when the real-world effectiveness of the personal-hydration aid stations will be put to the test.
