We had a very successful Spring Sweep the Creek on April 9 and 10, 2011! Thanks to all who contributed, and if you missed it, here are some photos of all the work and collaboration that happened to keep our Sligo creek clean.

Sweep the Creek Data

As part of the spring Sweep the Creek, volunteers were encouraged to tally the types of trash they found in the Park. Of the 11 sections that participated in the Sweep, all sections had some volunteers willing to tally their trash. Of the 384 volunteers, 50 percent participated in the data collection resulting in a total tally of 11,330 items recorded. The top ten items tallied made up 89 percent of the total items. This included plastic bags as the number one trash item totaling 2168 bags, food wrappers (1669), plastic bottles (1463), cigarettes (1073), glass bottles (997), cans (966), cups/plates/forks (779), caps/lids (455), clothing (241) and straws/stirrers (225). A surprising find was that volunteers found 12 bags of dog poop! Having data can help us monitor trends, advocate for legislation and leverage and share our data with other organizations.

Spreadsheet showing items collected per section