SPOKANE, Wash. —
The Spokane River: a city feature that's hard to miss.
“The Spokane river is such an important asset for our community, it flows right through town," volunteer Amanda Richardson said. "I just think its so cool to live in a community that has this beautiful river run right through it.”
But what isn't beautiful, is the trash that can collect in and near the river.
Volunteers said the trash can have harmful effects on ecosystems.
“If you think just one soda can won’t cause any harm, you should think again," high school senior and volunteer Ronan Gortler said. "That one soda can can cause a lot of disturbances for anything living in the water and those living out here as well.”
For six hours each year, volunteers are invited to participate in a city-wide river clean up.
16 service locations are scattered across Spokane, from as far west as Downriver road to as far east as Magnolia St. and Riverton Ave.
Volunteers noted a variety of trash they found during Saturday's clean up.
“Broken glass, scraps of metal, found a shoe, found a backpack, lots of plastic bottles, bottle caps," Richardson rattled off. "A lot of the micro trash that blows around, you see a lot of that down there.”
“The less trash we have out here, including a lot of scrap metal, the more chance we can get our River all cleaned up,” Gortler said.
Volunteers picked up until 2 p.m. and left piles of trash bags for city workers to pick up and discard.