It’s beautiful to see what happens when people come together and take responsibility for cleaning their local area. Recently, volunteers in Tennessee used a 25-foot aluminum workboat to traverse the Tennessee River and clean thousands of pounds of waste from the shorelines.
The river, a 652-mile tributary of the Ohio River, is one of the most polluted in the country, and the load of waste that these volunteers came away with proves that. Over the course of three days earlier this month, the volunteers wound up cleaning some 9,208 pounds of trash.
“That’s how the change for our river will happen: through local partners and individuals who are eager about taking ownership to protect and improve their beautiful river community,” said Kathleen Gibi, executive director of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful, an environmental volunteer group. “It’s been truly inspiring for us to see these change-makers take action.”
The team of volunteers is not stopping there as they have already planned another cleaning event in April. Ultimately, the goal is to collect 100,000 pounds of trash from the river by the end of the year.
