Volunteers work together to spruce up Chattahoochee River
Each year, a group of volunteers clear mounds of trash that the Chattahoochee River accumulates over time.
On Friday Channel 2′s Justin Carter went to Sandy Springs as volunteers got to work.
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There were many unique items that volunteers said they have found.
“I’ve seen golf balls and trash,” volunteer Karli Swift said. “Last year we fished a chair out of the river,” volunteer Pete Duke said.
They said the chair probably came from a storm that blew through.
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This year was no different as the group of about a dozen volunteers from Georgia Natural Gas hopped on their canoes and got the job done.
Volunteer Maurice Baker told Carter that this is something volunteers can’t reach just by hiking through. There are areas you can only reach by canoe.
It’s the company’s commitment to a clean environment and sustainability.
Volunteers from the company clean up the river around the same time every year, just in time for the busy summer months.
“It’s a water source. It’s a recreation source. There’s all types of different reasons that people would use the water. We want to keep that clean,” Duke said.
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With help from the National Park Service in just a few hours, they gathered about 10 bags of trash, including several basketballs, aluminum cans, and plastic buckets.
Swift says this is her second year doing this, and it’s always eye-opening.
“It’s great that folks like us are out here helping to make sure that debris is out of the river and doesn’t go into larger bodies of water. I think we all have to think about our waste and where it goes,” Swift said.
For eight years, volunteers have been doing the work and they said they have no plans of stopping anytime soon.
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