Volunteers at the Raritan Headwaters Association’s annual Stream Cleanup picked 11 tons of garbage out of 50 miles of waterfront on April 23. That is enough garbage to fill a large, 6,660-square-foot house, and weighs nearly as much as a school bus — or two adult-sized African elephants.

RHA is a nonprofit organization located in Bedminster, “working since 1959 to protect, preserve and improve water quality and other natural resources of the Raritan River headwaters region.”

The nonprofit’s work directly impacts the “health, safety, and quality of life for the 300,000 residents of the watershed region and the 1.5 million people living downstream in New Jersey’s urban areas,” as they rely on the water protected by the organization, according to the RHA website.

Approximately 1,000 volunteers spread across 45 cleanup sites spanning the Upper Raritan River watershed’s streams, rivers, lakes and reservoirs across Hunterdon, Somerset and Morris counties. The volunteers consisted of individuals, families, scout troops, churches, businesses, civic organizations, schools and municipal leaders.

Joining volunteers was U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-7th Dist., joining with one of the groups located in Raritan Township, Hunterdon County, as well as Bedminster Mayor Larry Jacobs, a longtime volunteer who helped clean up his local River Road Park.

The three-hour cleanup resulted in 650 full trash bags and 330 full recycling bags with a total of 36,000 items, many of which were plastics.

The following items were picked up:

Volunteers also picked up car parts, roof shingles, diapers, pieces of a tree house, a plastic toy chainsaw, a toy shovel and an assortment of balls for different sports.

Had these thousands of items not been removed from the water during the cleanup, they would eventually have flown into the Raritan Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, putting thousands of marine animals at risk of fatal plastic consumption. Over 1 million marine animals die each year as a result of the ocean’s plastic debris, according to the Sea Turtle Conservancy. This risk applies especially to turtles, as about 1,000 turtles die a year from plastic consumption, as recorded by the Ocean Blue Project.

This year’s stream cleanup was the organization’s 32nd time facilitating the event.

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Sarah Dolgin may be reached at sdolgin@njadvancemedia.com.

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