Written by 1 Mississippi intern in Tennessee, Elle Perry*
For the second time in two years, Illinois-based nonprofit Living Lands and Waters and its volunteers worked to clear debris out of McKellar Lake, which feeds into the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tenn.
Along with Americorps volunteers from colleges across the Midwest, the interns from the 1 Mississippi campaign all worked to pick up and bag trash. The college students lived on the LLW barge while they weren’t picking up plastics (particularly water bottles), liquor bottles, toys, styrofoam and other discarded items from the lake shore. About 70 percent of trash picked up will be recycled after sorting.
The litter comes from nearby Nonconnah Creek and is not the result of flooding according to founder and director, Chad Pregacke.
After several weeks of working, Pregacke held a press conference which was attended by the Mississippi River Network, the state department of transportation (TDOT), Shelby County Office of Conservation, the City of Memphis, and Memphis City Beautiful.
Pregacke announced grants received from Grainger and TDOT.
Pregacke also said that he wanted to work with the city to come up with a solution to prevent the large amount of trash from ever entering the waterway and prevent future trips to the city to do large scale clean ups.
The officials present said they would work with the group to help establish a plan.
*Field Notes are a new series from the 1 Mississippi campaign, created and developed by our regional campaign interns as a means to encourage River Citizen engagement and to help our interns grow as environmental leaders.