Volunteers Turn the Tide on Trash
Volunteers of all ages have come out to clean up trash in previous years.
March 2008 -- What do a giant plastic crocodile head, a coffin, Bosnian currency, a mannequin, a Montgomery County Frisbee and a freezer containing pigs' feet have in common? They were all items removed from the Potomac River during the Alice Ferguson Foundation's Potomac River Watershed Cleanup in 2007. Along with these interesting items were 290 tons of trash collected by over 8,000 volunteers at 402 cleanup sites in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. That's an average of 58 pounds of trash per volunteer! Nearly 16 percent of this material (or 18.5 tons) was glass, aluminum and plastic bottles that could be recycled.
Building on the success of last year's cleanup, the Alice Ferguson Foundation will host its 20th annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup on Saturday, April 5, 2008. Thousands of volunteers across the watershed will remove tons of trash from the shorelines of local streams and rivers. As volunteers collect the trash, they will record the types of objects they find to better understand where the trash is coming from. For instance, the top brand names collected in 2007 were Budweiser, 7-Eleven, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Pepsi.
How does all this trash enter local rivers and streams? Storm drains are the most common transit route for trash. Rains funnel trash along roadways and sidewalks into the storm drain system, then into streams and finally the Potomac River. The core strategy to prevent trash accumulation is to stop it at the source: people. Anti-littering campaigns and cleanups like the Alice Ferguson Foundation's are critical ways to combat the trash problem.
The Alice Ferguson Foundation hopes the cleanup will be a catalyst for instilling a stewardship ethic in participants. Trash is a tangible type of pollution; most people are affected when they see a stream clogged with discarded soda bottles and plastic bags. Cleanups reestablish people's connection between the behavior of littering and the consequence of degraded waters.
The Alice Ferguson Foundation's other Trash Free Initiatives include:
The Alice Ferguson Foundation hopes to build on the success of last year's cleanup and continue towards its goal of a trash-free Potomac by 2013. To locate a cleanup site near you or register one, visit www.PotomacCleanup.org or call (301) 292-5665.