Passaic River Clean-up
by Anton Getz
August 17, 2024
On August 17, ten volunteers met in Little Falls at Suchorsky Park for a boat-based cleanup of the Passaic River. The plan was to paddle upstream first, remove trash, and then circle the island directly across from the park. Well, we never officially got to the island because there was so much trash in the quarter mile of river upstream of the island.
The first item to be plucked from the water, stuck between two submerged tree limbs was an intact “fat tire” bike. It must have been recently deposited in the river from the December 2023-January 2024 flooding as it was not terribly rusted and still actually worked (several volunteers rode the bike at the end of the cleanup.)
From there, we collected items big and small. The typical accumulation of single-use plastic bottles caught in tree limb coves, about 20 tires with and without rusting rims, a backyard lounge chair, 10 plastic yard chairs, a small tube TV that had a “Life’s a Beach” sticker on it, a car battery, several pool liners, an orange traffic barrel, a pair of neoprene waders, many pieces of foam board likely part of an recent nearby construction project, and various other medium to small items.
At one point, as I was working with Monica to break up the large foam boards into smaller pieces for canoe transport, I said “We are not in Sedge anymore”.
A big THANK YOU to Peter W., Phil B., Monica O. and Jens R., Rob G., Michele G., Caitlyn R., Gregg B. of the NJ Clean River Crew https://www.facebook.com/p/NJ-Clean-River-Crew-61558206661972/?_rdr and Lynn B. of Stroke Your Eco https://strokeyoureco.org/ for spending the majority of their Saturday to clean up this small section of the Passaic River.
Anton