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2023 Trash Trap Wrap Up!

Environmental, Litter-Free Rivers, Neuse River Watershed, Sound Rivers, Stormwater, Stormwater Issues, Stormwater Runoff, Tar-Pamlico Watershed, Volunteer, Volunteers, Water Quality

Posted on December 21st, 2023

The nor’easter that hit the East Coast last weekend dumped plenty of rain on North Carolina. With rain, comes runoff. And with runoff, comes lots of trash. This week, we wrapped up our Litter-Free Rivers program for 2023 with some much-needed clean-outs of our trash traps in Kinston, Washington, New Bern and Raleigh. We’re looking forward to the New Year, bringing on more volunteers to help keep our waterways litter-free, and installing more trash traps in Greenville and Rocky Mount! Meanwhile, here’s a look at what the trash traps prevented from flowing into the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico this week.

The Raleigh crew pulled 16 pounds of trash from the trash trap on Little Rock Creek in Raleigh on Wednesday.
Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop with an interesting find from the Little Rock Creek trash trap.
Sound Rivers’ water-quality intern Maya Hardison eyes the trash pulled from the Little Rock Creek trash trap.
Volunteer Mike Stokes holds the 29.8-pound bag of trash that he and Volunteer Coordinator Emily Fritz pulled from the Duffyfield Canal, New Bern, trash trap on Thursday. Interesting finds: basketballs and footballs.
Mother Earth Brewing partners took on cleaning out the Kinston trash trap this week and fixed one of the lines attaching it to the bank of Adkin Branch.
The BEFORE photo of the Adkin Branch, Kinston, trash trap. Notice the many plastic bottles.
The AFTER photo of the Kinston trash trap: after 38 pounds of trash was prevented from flowing out of Adkin Branch into the Neuse River.
Jack’s Creek in Washington got a clean-out for a second week in a row. Look how much trash accumulated in just a week’s time.
Job well done: Sound Rivers Board Member Betsy Hester and Tar-Pamlico Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman pose in front of the trash-free trash trap on Jack’s Creek.

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