Trash pollutes our waterways, harms aquatic wildlife, decreases recreational opportunities, degrades the natural beauty of our cities, clogs storm drains increasing the risk of inland flooding, and ultimately can end up in the Ocean.
Figure 1. Trash along the side of the road can be carried into stormdrains by heavy rains, polluting our waterways.
For the last five years, the Mystic River Watershed Association has been working to discover the sources of this trash — so that we can develop solutions! One such strong tool — developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency — is the visual trash assessment (VTA).
MyRWA has conducted three VTA’s in 2018, 2021 and 2022. The 2018 and 2021 results demonstrated that industrial, multi-family residential, and commercial areas had far more trash than residential neighborhoods. For the VTAs in 2018 and 2021, MyRWA focused primarily on Somerville and Medford — while for the 2022 VTAs, the team chose to work in one community: Everett.
For Everett the team surveyed a total of 104 segments and found that the most common sources of trash in the study were in commercial and industrial areas (Figure 2). For commercial areas, we found that areas that were in closer proximity to fast food had comparatively higher density of trash than commercial areas that did not have a fast food restaurant (Figure 3).
Figure 2. Results from 2022 visual trash assessments in Everett.
Figure 3. 2022 Visual Trash Assessment results and proximity to fast food restaurants.
Figure 4. 2022 VTA results overlayed with information about public trash cans (black = trash can, white = no trash can).
This year we also collected data on public trash cans. Out of 104 segments that were surveyed only 16 segments had trash cans. The black lines in the image (Figure 4) represent streets that have a public trash can and the white lines are the streets without a trash can. It’s perhaps not surprising that streets with public trash cans have less trash on the road compared to streets with no public trash cans.
With this data in hand, some of the strategies that our local municipalities could implement to substantially reduce trash include: 1) enhancing street sweeping in areas with fast food chains, 2) installing solar compressor trash bins (which can save on maintenance costs) around areas with higher foot traffic, and 3) policies or outreach campaigns that encourage businesses to help mitigate the problem of escaped litter. These strategies can not only reduce the litter problem and improve public health but also foster a sense of pride and responsibility among community members, encouraging them to take an active role in keeping the environment clean and healthy.
MyRWA’s Trash Free Mystic initiative is working to reduce the short-term and long-term impacts of trash in our rivers through education, stewardship, data collection, and shared solutions with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and individual municipalities.
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the volunteers who generously gave their time and energy to help us collect the survey data. Their commitment and dedication to this project were invaluable and without their support, this study would not have been possible.
For questions about our Trash Free Mystic initiative, contact Sushant Bajracharya (sushant.bajracharya@mysticriver.org).
