Record
rainfall in July and August led to a pileup of
trash in Walnut Creek.
Volunteers with
the nonprofit group The Great Raleigh Cleanup gathered Saturday to clear about
1,500 pounds of trash.
“I’ve been
doing this for almost 5 years in October, and as far as marine debris goes, I
think this is the biggest one we’ve ever tackled,” said Preston Ross III, the
found of The Great Raleigh Cleanup.
Ross said
volunteers cleaned the same part of Walnut Creek two or three months ago.
They never expected the trash to return with vengeance.
Ross said a
call to action came from a woman on social media.
“She was
walking her dog, and she saw this, and on
Reddit she was like, ‘Can anybody help or have resources?’” Ross said. “And
Reddit did its thing, and people tagged the
[Great] Raleigh Cleanup.”
Celia Lechtman
was one of about 30 volunteers who got dirty to clear out the litter.
“The
garbage was so thick that you could sit on top of it,” Lechtman said.
Lechtman said
plastic bottles made up most of the mess with aluminum cans, Styrofoam and
other debris sprinkled in.
“Water will move pretty much whatever it wants to, and it has no issue bringing trash to
the creek,” Ross said.
Though Ross and
his team likely weren’t the ones to create the mess, WRAL News asked him why he
felt the need to clean it up.
“When I
came out here, I knew it wasn’t going to be perfect, and I’m still very proud
of what I did and I know we need to come back,” Ross said. “But I came out here
and I look down and I saw two butterflies and about four turtles.
“That’s my
reasoning.”
The Great Raleigh Cleanup is always
looking for volunteers. People are urged not to litter and to properly
dispose trash.