GREENFIELD — Middle schoolers at The Center School in Greenfield and Deerfield’s Eaglebrook School rolled up their sleeves, pulled on gloves and picked up trash in their local streams on Friday, marking the return of the yearly cleanup effort.
Organized by the Connecticut River Conservancy, the litter collection marked the first day of the 29th annual Source to Sea Cleanup, a series of community trash pickups across the 410-mile Connecticut River Watershed through Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The annual event has long been held in conjunction with the Green River Cleanup, formed 22 years ago.
Last year, 117 groups participated in the Source to Sea Cleanup across the four states to remove 39 tons of waste. In Franklin County, about 300 volunteers signed up this year to pick up trash at roughly 40 sites, according to David Boles, who founded the Green River Cleanup. Of his list of shocking cleanup discoveries, Boles said volunteers have fished out cars, snowmobiles, motorcycles and even a crate with a litter of six kittens.
“I’m just appreciative of how many people don’t want to live with a bunch of trash and don’t want to see their creeks full of trash and don’t want to see their roadways full of trash,” Boles said after taking his electric bike to The Center School’s pickup.
When Boles bikes to neighboring towns, he said he must dodge litter along the road.
“The tributaries and rivers belong to all of us, and I think it’s important for kids to realize that they can actually take charge and put some energy into helping to clean them up,” Boles said.
The Center School’s students pulled food and gum wrappers, plastic bottles, a basketball, a Frisbee and a shopping cart from the creek alongside Oak Courts on Friday. Along the stream surrounding the Home Depot parking lot, Eaglebrook students picked up plastic bags, fast food, cigarette butts, a tire, a tent pole and even a chair.
“It’s interesting because you never know what you’re going to find,” Center School eighth grader Milo Koppelman-Lauria said. Last year, Milo’s class discovered an old doll, which became an unofficial class mascot. The student said classmates photoshopped the doll into fun backgrounds, like a Taylor Swift concert.
At both pickups, most discoveries came with the declaration, “I found this!”
“There’s this curiosity and amazement of what you’re finding in an area [where] you wouldn’t think [something like] that would be right there,” said Eaglebrook sixth grade math and science teacher Shappy LaPointe.
Similarly, eighth grader Ruby Pollock said each discovery sparks the thought, “Ooh victory! I found something odd!” Ruby said finds like a plastic bottle filled with pennies inspire questions about the stories behind the trash.
Ruby has picked up trash with her class and family members during past Source to Sea Cleanups because, “It’s helpful for the environment.”
“If the whole world is gross and plasticky, you don’t get to enjoy nature,” she said.
LaPointe and Kara McColgan, who teaches math and science at The Center School, said the cleanups take lessons about the watershed outside the classroom.
“Doing something like this, you get a very clear visual of our impact,” McColgan said. After a student asked if they could store trash in the muddy shopping cart, she added that the field day is also “a great to way to get some ingenuity.”
“We’re really trying to instill this sense of the broad community in our classroom, in our building, and then larger,” McColgan explained.
At Eaglebrook, students will use their tally of trash finds as data for math projects to learn the power of “citizen science,” LaPointe said.
“It’s a great opportunity for them to see what is here and recognize the difference that we can make,” LaPointe explained.
The groups left the bags from their trash treasure hunt at the sites. On Saturday, volunteers picked up the piles in trucks and tossed them in dumpsters donated by USA Waste & Recycling, according to Boles.
The weekend of cleanups culminated at the Green River Swimming and Recreation Area on Saturday. Volunteers met in the morning before splitting off to collect trash at nearby sites.
“Everybody has a great time,” Boles said. “It’s such a community dynamic.”