A cleanup event organized by Alabama-based environmental group Tennessee Riverkeeper removed more than 1,420 pounds of litter from tributaries to the Tennessee River in Decatur Saturday, the group says.
David Whiteside, founder of Tennessee Riverkeeper, said the group has removed more than 14,870 pounds of trash at cleanup events throughout the Tennessee River watershed this year.
“These events show that a few people can make a difference, and cleanups provide some hope for hundreds of thousands of citizens who are concerned about our blessed river and its tributaries,” he said. "Clean water is a nonpartisan issue; we are all in this together.”
Saturday’s cleanup focused on Wilson Morgan Lake and Clark Spring Branch near the Tennessee River, areas Whiteside said are a collection zone for litter that is thrown out on streets and washes into the rivers.
Whiteside said most of what was collected Saturday was made from some form of plastic, the most common being polystyrene (“styrofoam”), polyethylene (plastic bottles and shopping bags), and polypropylene (straws).
The group has been on an education campaign about the high level of microplastics in the Tennessee River, as demonstrated by a German researcher who found extremely high levels of the plastics last year.
Microplastics are tiny particles of plastics that are often too small to see with the naked eye. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says microplastics can come from several sources, “including from larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller and smaller pieces.”
Removing those larger pieces of litter can prevent the bags, straws and styrofoam from breaking down into billions of microplastic particles.
“There is no easy solution to this problem,” Whiteside said. "We do know that preventing plastics from entering waterways is an obvious solution and it is easier to remove garbage from the shorelines and shallow water of creeks and rivers. It is very difficult and inefficient to try to remove litter from deeper water.
"Another important solution is education and informing citizens that littering not only makes our community look trashy, it also impairs fishing and water quality.”