The second group of volunteers at the Chickamauga Lake Cleanup pose with a mountain of trash they collected from the shorelines of the Tennessee River. Just as their boat approached this site, the volunteers were greeted by a pair of bald eagles overhead and a heard of deer on the shoreline.

It’s been four years now that Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful has hosted the ‘Chickamauga Lake Cleanup presented by iSustain,’ and because of iSustain Recycling’s sponsorship, those cleanups have now surpassed 25,000 lbs. of litter removed by a total of 119 volunteers on Chickamauga Lake of the Tennessee River.

iSustain and Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful staff celebrate a full trash boat at the 4th annual Chickamauga Lake Cleanup presented by iSustain.

The cleanups that were held this year resulted in 5,959 lbs. of trash removed from the river’s shorelines. Items removed included:

· 124 bags of trash

· 9 tires

· 3 steel drums

· 132.5 square feet of Styrofoam

· 92 lbs. of scrap metal

· An abandoned fishing boat

The 2024 cleanup series was made possible thanks to a $7,5000 sponsorship from iSustain Recycling, a national sustainability services company that processes over 247 million pounds of recyclable products each year.

“This series has been possible over the last four years because iSustain initiated contact and asked us to do these cleanups with them, making an ‘all-in’ commitment both with their sponsorship and their own staff—some employees even being flown in from other parts of the country to participate,” said Gibi. “It’s inspiring to see returning and new faces alike from the iSustain team and local volunteers as they make such an impact for our waterways.”

iSustain employees and local volunteers pose with one of the trash piles they made collecting litter from shorelines of Chickamauga Lake on the Tennessee River.

Mark Huber, Vice President of Business Development for iSustain and KTNRB Board President, joined both cleanups with staff from the company as well as his family. He and his wife, Dawn Huber, who is owner of iSustain, have also adopted Tennessee River Mile 489 on Chickamauga Lake through KTNRB’s Adopt a River Mile program.

Two volunteers share their findings at the 4th annual Chickamauga Lake Cleanup presented by iSustain.

“So excited to continue to support this effort to bring focus to, educate, and have ‘boots’ on the ground cleaning our beautiful river,” said Huber. “Our team loves supporting this initiative as it is a natural extension of our company’s effort to improve our impact on the environment.

“Together with KTNRB, we want to inspire people of all ages to change their behavior to reduce, reuse, and recycle, which ultimately eliminates litter in our environment.”

The event series was also held in partnership with the Keep Soddy Daisy Beautiful, who assisted with local volunteer recruitment and participated in the cleanups.

The cleanups yielded enough volunteer-collected litter for three boatsful of trash, enough to pack a 40-yard dumpster (that’s 8’ x 8’ x 22’) to the brim after the two cleanups. The dumpster service was donated by Capital Waste Services in Soddy Daisy.

For a list of upcoming cleanups with Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful, visit www.KeepTNRiverBeautiful.org/upcomingcleanups.