By Eden Gallanter You know how throwing things in the garbage is easy, but taking out the trash is something that nobody likes to do? Dealing with trash collection and disposal is a big endeavor, especially if you're talking about an entire neighborhood or city. Trash has to be compacted and hauled to a landfill, where it often creates health and environmental hazards. Either that or it's incinerated, releasing toxic chemicals and vast quantities of carbon emissions into the air. These disposal methods are costly and laborious affairs, but it has to be done. Trash is all the stuff that …
trash
By Land and By Shore | Hundreds of Volunteers United for National Day of Service
By Chris Lim & Matt Freiberg On an unseasonably warm January 17th, The Watershed Project celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service by hosting volunteers from around the Bay Area at the Richmond Greenway and Shimada Friendship Park. At the Greenway, The Watershed Project joined forces with a myriad of other Richmond-based community groups, including Friends of the Richmond Greenway, Urban Tilth, Groundworks Richmond, Gompers High School, and CURME. The event drew nearly 400 volunteers, who spread out across eight different projects. Volunteers at The Watershed Project's …
Trash Detectives Hit the Streets | A New Approach to Taking Out the Trash
Oscar the Grouch may love trash but most people find it unpleasant. And for aquatic species, it's downright harmful. The Watershed Project has sponsored many creek cleanups over the years, but ask any volunteer and they'll tell you that the trash keeps coming back. The Taking out the Trash Campaign, spearheaded by Clean Water Action, is addressing trash with an innovative tool set. Instead of just counting and categorizing the trash, a specially-trained group of volunteers are tracing trash items found on streets and sidewalks back to their source, i.e. the point of sale. The data and …
Everyday Environmental Heroes Take to the Shore | Coastal Cleanup Day 2010 Breaks Records
By Juliana Gonzalez Coastal Cleanup Day 2010 was a record-breaking event in the battle against ocean pollution. In Contra Costa County alone, more than 2,500 people, equipped with reusable buckets and endless enthusiasm, turned out at 35 creek and shoreline cleanup locations. Volunteers stopped over 17,000 pounds of trash from reaching the ocean-- a heroic accomplishment. Thank you, thank you, thank you for doing your part to help care for our precious water resources. The most common types of trash collected along shorelines were food wrappers, plastic bags, cigarette filters, Styrofoam …
