a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Creek Cleanup

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Creek Cleanup

SUMMARY: Take that, you evil plastic bags!
Today was National River Clean-up Day. I spent a couple of hours along Canoas Creek near my house with other volunteers.

The creek was amazingly clear of trash, although we did haul out a few small bags of stuff. A few years back, I helped along the Guadalupe River and we hauled out dumpsters worth of stuff. People today told me that Canoas Creek was like that a few years back when they first started. Now, not nearly so bad.

Here I am after a successful plastic-bag-picking-up morning. (Also snack wrappers, broken glass. Not much else. Except balls. Lots of balls.)

Go here: http://elf1.smugmug.com/Events/River-Clean-Up-Day-May-2011/ to see all my photos for the day, with the usual captions.


  1. What a great day! Aren't you proud that the community didn't trash the creek this year? My parents used to collect trash from along their road on their daily walks. In the beginning there'd be a bag of trash each day. Over the years it dwindled until now there's hardly anything thrown along the road. We figured that people saw these two little old people picking up trash every day and thought twice about tossing theirs out the window of their car. When they both died in 2004 other neighbors continued the tradition in their memory. When I'm down there I see the neighbors out picking up what little trash there is. Makes me cry. But they are happy tears.

  2. It does sometimes seem to be contagious. Good for your parents for starting something! Wish it worked that well on the freeways--the adopt-a-highway program is good, but still, within days, there's trash everywhere again. There's a little dead end near me with just shrubs and trees. I and a few other people periodically go through and trim and pull weeds and pick up trash. I think a lot of what ends up there is the d***ed plastic bags blowing in from somewhere else. On the other hand, that means there's always a bag there to put trash into. :-) It'll be interesting to see how things change when the plastic bag ban goes into effect.

  3. They could use you down at the Chicago River. Just be sure to bring a haz-mat suit.

  4. Lots of rivers used to be like that. Some have had successful rehab. The chicago river is tough because of all the concrete overshoes lining the river basin.