Volunteers hit the water in Baldwin County for the 5th annual floating cleanup

BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. (WPMI) — Volunteers gathered in Baldwin County Saturday for the South Alabama Land Trust’s fifth annual floating cleanup on Magnolia River near Week’s Bay.

Volunteers from both Mobile and Baldwin counties took kayaks and canoes out onto the water to collect trash.

“Picking up the trash, retrieving the trash, is certainly helpful from an aesthetics view. You know, it looks bad. But it is also very important for the safety of swimmers. In the summertime and spring, people start coming out in their boats and swimming and skiing, and the trash could really get in the way and hurt somebody. It can also really affect the invertebrates, the marine life,” said Diana Brewer, development and communication coordinator for South Alabama Land Trust.

“You wouldn’t believe how many beer cans and bottles and water toys and chairs on the docks, things like that, that end up around the edges of the waterways. So we retrieve all that trash,” Brewer added.

According to the South Alabama Land Trust’s website, volunteers pick up more than 1,200 pounds of trash each year. Volunteers in previous years have picked up everything from plastic bottles and fishing line to old tires and coolers, the website says.

The event was co-sponsored by the Osprey Initiative and JubileeScape, and it was put on with funding assistance from CITGO and Restore America’s Estuaries.

This story originally aired on NBC15 by Tanner Gilliland. Read the full story here.

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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.