The skimmer removes trash and oil sheen from the river- it collected about 3,000 pounds in the first six months of its operation. It doesn’t collect all the trash that washes in from the streets, but it does its best to collect trash that would otherwise get into the ocean and be even more difficult to get out. Other ways we can help prevent water pollution are to put trash into closed dumpsters or trash cans and to plant lawns that don’t require fertilizer or pesticides.
Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and use science to find everyday solutions. I’m Megan Hall.
If you walk along the Providence River near the Hot Club, you might notice something that looks like a small dumpster in the water. It’s called a “trash skimmer.”
We had Molly Magid and Alina Kulman from our Possibly team investigate what this device is doing. Welcome Molly and Alina!
Molly Magid: Hi Megan!
Alina Kulman: Hello!
Megan Hall: So what does the trash skimmer do?
Alina Kulman: To find out, we talked with Sara Canuel, the education director at the Woonasquatucket Rivershed Council. She told us the skimmer is there to remove pollution from the river.
Molly Magid: She says that all sorts of trash ends up in the skimmer…
Sara Canuel: I found a dog bowl once and a couch cushion. That was really weird.
Megan Hall: Ok, so how does it work?
Molly Magid: First, a small current pulls trash and oil from the river into the skimmer. Then..
Sara Canuel: The gates that are on the side are almost like a doggy door where it’s trapped inside
Alina Kulman: Every morning, someone from the Hot Club empties the skimmer out and the process starts all over again.
Megan Hall: So how much trash has the skimmer collected?
Alina Kulman: In its first six months in the water, it pulled in about three thousand pounds of trash.
Megan Hall: Is that a lot?
Molly Magid: Well, in 2018, all of the coastal clean-ups hosted by Save the Bay collected about 13,000 pounds of trash. If the trash skimmer continues at this rate, it will collect about half that much this year.
Alina Kulman: We know the trash skimmer isn’t collecting everything. But is catching a lot of junk before it gets into the ocean where it’s much harder to collect.
Molly Magid: Sara says it’s satisfying to see the skimmer chipping away at a pretty overwhelming problem.
Sara Canuel: In the environmental field in general it really hard to not slip into like the doom and gloom of it all…the silver lining is that there are things that help and make a difference
Megan Hall: But how did all that trash end up in the river in the first place?
Molly Magid: Well trash from the street travels by wind and rain to the lowest place in the city, which is the Providence River watershed.
Alina Kulman: This means, if we want to keep that junk out of the river, we can start by picking up litter on the streets and putting our waste in dumpsters or trash cans with lids.
Molly Magid: And the city of Providence has already done one thing that might help- It passed a ban on plastic bags earlier this year.
Alina Kulman: Plastic bags are one of the most common pieces of trash found in the ocean, so skipping single-use bags in Providence might cut down on the waste that ends up in the bay..
Megan Hall: What else can we do to prevent river pollution?
Alina Kulman: Well since the skimmer doesn’t take chemicals out of the water, we can help keep the river clean by bringing household chemicals like bleach to disposal facilities instead of pouring them down the drain.
Molly Magid: We can also limit the chemicals we use on our lawns by planting things that don’t need fertilizer and pesticides.
Megan Hall: Great! Thanks Alina and Molly!
That’s it for today. For more information or to ask a question about the way you recycle, use energy, or make any other choice that affects the planet, go to “the public’s radio dot org slash possibly.” Or subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts.
Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and the Public’s Radio.
Resources
- https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190815/voracious-providence-river-trash-skimmer-traps-up-to-150-pounds-day
- Save the Bay Rhode Island 2018 Report https://www.savebay.org/wp-content/uploads/ICC-Brochure-1.18.19-for-WEB.pdf
- http://atoz.rirrc.org/– Search tool to determine the best way to dispose your waste
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