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Sounds Rivers Executive Director Heather Deck and Volunteer Coordinator Emily Fritz joined fellow river-lovers last weekend to do a clean sweep of Brices Creek in New Bern.

The river cleanup was held in partnership with Craven County, Twin Rivers Paddle Club, and Coastal Environmental Partnership, as part of Craven County’s Clean Sweep program, featuring opportunities for volunteers to participate in land cleanups held throughout the year.

“Typically, they do land cleanups, where volunteers can pick up all the supplies they need from the Craven County Clean Sweep office and host their own cleanups throughout the county,” Emily said. “They also host the Little Sweep in February, Spring Sweep in May, Summer Sweep in August and October is their Big Sweep. This has been going on for a while, but this past year, they reached out to Sound Rivers to see if we could team up and extend the Clean Sweep effort onto the water.”

Heather and Emily joined 15 volunteers, who made a huge dent in Brices Creek trash, netting 302 pounds of litter in a few hours.

“On Brices Creek, you really don’t see a ton of trash in the open water, because it all piles up on the banks or will get washed into the smaller tributaries,” Emily said. “There were some areas where it looked like trash had been dumped, or maybe got trapped there by flooding, but thankfully, all of our Clean Sweep volunteers were excited to get into the muck to get the trash.”

While the usual trash suspects were in abundance (plastics of all types), there were some surprises.

“Most notable were the large blue barrels that folks were somehow able to balance on their kayaks and get back to land,” Emily said.

Like Sound Rivers efforts to keep your waterways Litter-Free? We do, too! Donate today to support litter-free rivers!