River cleanup yields heaps of waste
Volunteers did great job, but their work should not be necessary
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Balancing a big tire or a bag of garbage on a canoe and then paddling that canoe downstream without capsizing requires some skill.
Fortunately, some of the volunteers who took part in Saturday's Des Moines River cleanup effort had the necessary skills to do just that. It is unfortunate, however, that the volunteers’ strength and canoeing skill had to be applied to such a task. A tire -- or any other kind of junk -- should never be in a river.
On Saturday, about 25 volunteers took part in the cleanup organized by Webster County Conservation. The group included some members of the Iowa Central Community College swim team.
They did a lot of picking up before they even got on the river. The haul included tires, a glass bowl, a high-heeled shoe, a fitted sheet, an old water heater, a dishwasher and insulation stripped from cables. And all that was found on the riverbank near where the group launched their canoes.
That is a disgrace. We should all be angry that our river has become a kind of liquid dump site.
We should also be motivated to do better. Everyone knows how stupid littering is. There is no excuse for doing it.
Get the recycling materials in the proper bins and get the garbage into the right cans. Learn the proper ways to dispose of tires and appliances, then do it.
Volunteers like those who were in the canoes and kayaks should not have to clean up after the rest of us. We are grateful that they spent some of their precious time doing so. We offer our thanks to the volunteers.
We hope that someday soon a version of the river cleanup will consist of all paddling and no picking up because there won’t be any junk in the river.