Thank you, Sweep Participants!

The Fall Sweep results are in!  Volunteers removed 200+bags of trash and recyclables from the creek and adjacent parkland! Thank you to everyone who took the time to come out. You helped to rid our local environment of litter, and prevent it from flowing into the Anacostia and the Chesapeake Bay. Check out the photos on the Sweep the Creek Photos page. And send yours in to be added!

If you missed the event

The weirdest discovery in the creek during the recent Sweep the Creek litter pick-up was this scuba diving headgear and tank, found in Section 1

The now-famous scuba diving headgear and tank found by the Section 1 team!

A green glass bottle in the shape of a skull - very seasonal!

A seasonal find in Section 10 – Long Branch

First, you’re invited to come out to the next Sweep event, currently planned for the MLK, Jr. holiday weekend in February.

Meanwhile, anytime you take a walk, you can join neighbors who pick up litter on their walk along the Creek, known as “plogging”. It’s derived from “picking up litter while jogging”, a Swedish concept being adopted internationally. This informal form of sweeping relieves the Creek of some of the daily ongoing pollution from trash. Wherever you walk, every piece of trash you stop from going down the waterways is time well spent. You benefit from the exercise, too!

If you notice particular trash hot spots in your local section of the Creek/Park, please email our new Litter Committee chair, Tanya DeKona (also known as the “Green Elf”), at [email protected]. She will be tracking these hot spots, to better target areas for future Sweeps, and understand trends and the sources of the litter that mar the Creek. She will also be planning Litter Committee meetings.

Tanya says: “Please email me, as above, with what you’d like to see related to litter. It would be nice to discuss such things at a Litter Committee meeting in future, and to identify what skill you may have that you’d like to contribute to helping our Creek and its ecosystem. I am open to and interested in hearing from folks. Please let me know!”

Corinne Stevens with found lumber with plastic flower decoration Section 4 Sweepers with a trash bag and a plastic garbage can lidA group of Sweepers in Section 7 A sweeper holding an old shoe...where's the other one?The Sweep team in Section 7