News

The Jack’s Creek Trash Trout in Washington got its second clean-out this week.

On Wednesday, volunteers joined Lower Neuse water-quality intern Megan Long and Tar-Pamlico intern Maddie Garrison to remove trash from the litter trap, then audit what it had trapped since its last clean-out on May 20.

This outing’s trash tally included:

Plast­­ic film: 9 single-use plastic bags; 10 other bags; 11 food wrappers; 1 latex glove; 33 fragments; 32 listed as “other.”

Hard plastics: 45 bottles; 2 cups; 5 lids/caps; 15 straws; 68 cigarette butts; 6 “other”, 15 fragments.

Styrofoam: 15 cups; 6 take-out containers/plates; 1 piece of package material; 38 other large pieces; 165 fragments.

Metal: 13 drink cans; 2 bottlecaps; 2 other.

Glass: 1 bottle.

Other material: 2 face masks; 3 pieces of fabric; 1 piece of string; 1 small rubber balloon; plastic football; 7 cigar butts.

Many thanks go out to volunteers Carl, Christina, Luke, Amanda and Dawn for helping with this statewide microplastics project. For more information about Trash Trouts and the research they are supporting visit this page.

A second Trash Trout has been installed in New Bern and a third is slated for the Walnut Creek watershed in Raleigh.