After several river cleanups with Asheville GreenWorks, I was shocked by what the team found in the Swannanoa River, Hominy Creek, and French Broad River. It was concrete evidence that our rivers and streams are the "dispose-all" for the earth. Most trash was intentional, like a shopping cart, pipes, radios, beer cans, and the endless amount of car tires. But some trash seemed unintentional, like plastic shopping bags, food wrappers, and plastic bottles. One source for this uncontrollable trash is rain runoff created by the many impervious surfaces in Asheville. I noticed plastic bags hanging in the trees and plastic bottles scattered along the riverbank, most likely the result of the high water levels our rivers experienced from Asheville's rainy summer. People need to realize that our waterways are all one big conveyor belt to our oceans. One can start combating this problem by not using plastic bags or bottles because even if you are not deliberately polluting our rivers, using those items promotes the chance of it happening. Help Asheville GreenWorks' effort to stop trash from leaving our watershed by eliminating as much plastic from your life as possible!
-Christine
