News

The team from Mother Earth Brewing stepped away from the taps and into Adkin Branch on Wednesday.

The Mother Earth crew met up with Sound Rivers Volunteer Coordinator Emily Fritz and water-quality intern Katrina Borgen to don waders and sunscreen to clean out the trash trap on one of Kinston’s urban waterways.

The total haul was 94 pounds of trash trapped by the passive litter collection device and removed in less than an hour by the volunteers.

“We didn’t have too many interesting finds this cleanup,” Emily said. “We found lots of plastic bottles, lighters and enemy No. 1: Styrofoam.”

Since the trash trap was installed last August, more than 470 pounds of garbage have been removed from Adkin Branch.

“The Kinston trash trap is doing a fantastic job collecting and containing the trash after storms, and it has been adjusting well to the varying water levels,” Emily said. “The Kinston trash trap will turn one in August, and I’m very proud of all of its hard work!”

The Kinston trash trap is part of Sound Rivers Litter-Free Rivers program and is one of five trash traps installed on waterways in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico river basins. The other trash traps are located on Jack’s Creek in Washington, Duffyfield Canal in New Bern, Little Rock Creek in Raleigh and Greens Mill Run in Greenville. Sound Rivers is working with the City of Raleigh and The Great Raleigh Cleanup to install two more trash traps on Raleigh waterways, and with the Town of Tarboro to potentially put a trap on a Tar River tributary.

Mother Earth Brewing in Kinston is one of the sponsors of the Kinston trash trap.

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