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A cleanup on Spring Branch laid the groundwork last Friday for a Sound Rivers trash trap installation this Friday.

Last week, Sound Rivers’ Program Director Clay Barber and Volunteer Coordinator Emily Fritz spent an afternoon in Smithfield hosting a cleanup and spreading the word about the coming trash trap on Spring Branch, an urban tributary of the Neuse River that flows near the community gardens and constructed wetland at Fifth and Church streets.

“The whole thing was such a pleasure,” Clay said. “We couldn’t have asked for better conditions. It was a like a winter-time stage wetland but springtime weather, and we had an awesome group that showed up. Some were longtime supporters and trash trappers, and some we’d never met before.”

It was a very informal event: Clay and Emily set up a table and tent and greeted everyone who showed up.

“People would walk up, and we would introduce ourselves, talk about our Litter-Free Rivers program and how they can get involved,” Clay said.

A few of those people showed up ready to get to work, he said.

“Our volunteers were ready for business — about four or five people picked up 80-some pounds of trash in about an hour,” Clay said. “Then they’d hang out in the shade of the tent, and we’d talk about our hopes for the trash trap, enlisting them to monitor or adopt the trash trap, send us photos. They seemed pretty excited about it.”

Emily and Clay will be back in Smithfield at 11 a.m. on Friday for the installation of trash trap No. 13* in Sound Rivers’ ever-expanding fleet of Litter-Free Rivers trash traps. The public is invited to come out to watch the process.

Since launching the Litter-Free Rivers program, Sound Rivers has installed a fleet of 12 passive litter-collection devices on urban waterways throughout the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico watersheds. The Litter-Free Rivers program started with a Jack’s Creek, Washington, installation in May of 2022. Since, nine more trash traps have been added: on Duffyfield Canal in New Bern, Little Rock Creek in Raleigh, Adkin Branch in Kinston, Greens Mill Run in Greenville, East Tarboro Canal in Tarboro, three more were added on Marsh Creek in Raleigh (in partnership with the City of Raleigh, The Great Raleigh Cleanup and N.C. State University), a second Washington trash trap on a small tributary of Jack’s Creek,on Little Creek in the Town of Clayton and on Walnut Creek, near its confluence of Lake Johnson, in Raleigh.

Nearly 7 tons of trash have been removed from Litter-Free Rivers’ trash traps by an army of volunteers before it could enter the Neuse or Tar-Pamlico rivers — a step in the right direction to make your rivers litter-free.

If you or your group would be interested in working for water quality by volunteering to clean out a trash trap or Adopt a Trash Trap for a month, check out the following:

More information about the Adopt A Trash Trap program.

Find out when and where the next trash trap cleanouts are scheduled — we’d love to have your help! Email emily@soundrivers.org.

Like Sound Rivers’ ever-expanding Litter-Free Rivers program? We definitely do! Donate today to help Litter-Free Rivers grow!

*This has previously been reported at trash trap No. 14. Trash trap No. 14 is in Sound Rivers’ possession and is looking for a home.