News

Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop and Sound Rivers’ Executive Director Heather Deck made a trip to Kinston this week to go scouting for a fourth Trash Trout location.

The two met up with Mother Earth Brewing Executive Vice President Matthew Hart and Lenoir Community College Professor Maria Messner to do a field tour of Adkin Branch to select a future place for the litter trap that captures trash in our waterways.

“We got to spend some time exploring the FEMA buyout area, where FEMA purchased many hundreds of acres from community members who were impacted by Hurricane Floyd, now owned by the city,” Sam said, referring to a once-vibrant Black community known as Lincoln City.

The group followed scouting up with a visit to the Adkin Branch access area near the Holloway Recreation Center on Myrtle Avenue.

Mother Earth Brewing, located in downtown Kinston, has signed on to sponsor this newest Trash Trout.

“Our next steps will be approaching the city of Kinston with the proposal to move forward with this project,” Sam said.

Sound Rivers has three Trash Trouts currently installed — on Jack’s Creek in Washington, Duffyfield Canal in New Bern and on Little Rock Creek near the Walnut Creek Wetland Center in Raleigh — and teams of volunteers in each location who regularly clean out and audit the trash collected by the device. This data will be used in a two-year-long study determining how macroplastics breakdown into microplastics in our waterways.

If you’re interested in volunteering at any of the Trash Trout locations, email us at info@soundrivers.org!