Day 9: Project Clean Stream

Hi!!! It's Olivia.

Today was such a great day. My friend Nicole and I participated in community service by cleaning up a stream in Baltimore called the Baltmore Harbor Shed. The event's name was Project Clean Stream. Today was a state wide clean up of these streams, located in about 50 different places throughout Maryland.
We met at the Center for Community Service and Justice (CCSJ) at Loyola around 8:30. It was drizzling in the morning, and after waiting for the vans and getting lost on the way to the stream, we finally made it there around 9:20.
We were told that there would be two groups that can switch off: canoers and shoreline helpers. Before we headed down to the water though, we learned that most of the trash we would be picking up was from trucks that have dropped garbage from 12 nearby neighborhoods traveling on its way to the trash incinerator (trash burning facility). This trash went into the drains in the streets and was spat out at this location.
Nicole and I started out in the canoes. We were given gloves to wear, along with nets to catch garbage that was floating in the water.

 On the shoreline, we were given "grabbers", rakes, shovels, and any other necessary tool to pick up trash along the sides of the stream. This is a picture of me with some of the trash the group had collected.

 To the right is a view from above the river. What this area looked like with all of the trash is similar or even less dramatic as to what the stream/shore looked like in some spots.                                




 Before and After: this is an area on the shoreline that Nicole and I cleaned up. As you can tell, we made a huge impact!
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It was so sad to notice that much of the pieces of trash we were collecting could be recylced. We saw hundreds of glass bottles, soda cans, plastic juice bottles, cardboard, paper boxes, etc. If people had just recycled these items, they wouldn't be on the shoreline and these people would be helping the environment!! One of the funny moments was when I found an office chair in the brush on the side of the stream. It was in pretty decent condition for sitting in piles of garbage for a long time, and it was heavy duty. Together, Nicole and I pulled it out and rolled it to the truck where all the fulll garbage bags were placed.

 Here is a group shot of all of the kids involved. In the background, you can see the truck filled with the trash bags. We had such a fun time, and athough it was cold, it was great that the rain held off for us. Nicole and I really want to participate in the event next year, seeing how much of a difference we made and how much fun we had.

 Well, we're about to watch a movie, so I should go!

Bye!