Davenport looking for spring cleanup volunteers

Osprey employees work to remove the Litter Gitter from Duck Creek at Marquette Park Thursday in Davenport. Photo by: ALEX GANT

The city is hosting the Corridor Cleanup 8-11 a.m. March 25, where volunteers will pick up litter that accumulated during the winter near at least eight major thoroughfares.

“We can’t do it alone,” said Robbin Dunn, the event’s coordinator. “The Corridor Cleanup is a great way to participate — take ownership in the community we live in, enjoy the outdoors, meet new people, and protect our local and downstream waterways litter finds its way into.”

The city plans to clean up at:

  • Brady Street, from Kimberly Road to 46th Street
  • Brady Street, from 46th Street to East 53rd Street
  • East 53rd Street, from Grand Avenue to Eastern Avenue
  • East Kimberly Road, from Elmore Avenue to Jersey Ridge Road
  • Rockingham Road, from Ricker Hill to I-280
  • West Locust Street, from I-280 to Wisconsin Avenue
  • Welcome Way, from 50th Street to Kimberly Road

Other litter cleanup efforts

Last summer, Davenport participated in a pilot project to install four “litter gitters” in creeks that would catch garbage and record data to figure out the biggest litter sources and locations.

Davenport’s creeks lead into the Mississippi River and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico, making the tracking of litter in Davenport important to marine life far away.

That project collected 476.31 pounds of litter from the waterways, Dunn said, of which 9.17% was recyclable. Those litter traps were taken out of the water in October. 

This spring, there will be community workshops open to the general public to gather input on topics, such as the convenience of litter disposal. Those workshops will be hosted by the granting agency, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which will go toward developing recommendations for how the Quad-Cities can reduce litter. 

It’s unclear whether the city will continue using the litter traps, which look like lobster traps, because of the cost to maintain them.

The company did leave the litter booms with the city for continued use, but the litter traps were removed, Dunn said. 

“As presented, keeping them would be cost-prohibitive (the benefit wasn’t there when weighed against the cost and maintenance),” Dunn wrote in an email. “However, the community has not ruled out their use in the future.”

More updates are expected this spring, she said.  

During the Corridor Cleanup, Dunn said, the city leaves tracking of litter to volunteers.

“Some individuals really get into it,” Dunn wrote. “While others really just want to clean things up.”

This story originally appeared in the Quad City Times by Sarah Watson. Read the original story online.

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The patented Litter Gitter is a tactical in-stream litter collection device used to intercept floating litter from stormwater runoff. The Osprey team handles all aspects of installing and maintaining these “trash traps” and compiles data on the items caught in them, recycling as much of the litter as possible.