3/3: As Oceanic Trash Islands Grow, What You Can Do from the Tennessee Valley

We’ve spent the last two installments of this blog series understanding the severity of litter—especially plastics—and how far it can go.

Here are six ways that you can help with reducing some of the biggest plastic culprits that Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful is finding along the river valley.

1. CHOOSE REUSABLE CUPS/BOTTLES/ TUMBLERS

Plastic bottles are projected to take up to 450 to 1,000 years to break down and Styrofoam cups can take anywhere from 50 to 500 years. Any time you opt against the use of a throwaway bottle or cup, that’s one less item that can contribute to the floating trash islands. After a length of time, similar conditions that bust up shells into microscopic pieces would bust up the bottles and cups for aquatic animals to ingest. Reusable cups, bottles, and tumblers help to reduce the frequency of this outcome.


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2. CARRY STORE BOUGHT GOODS IN TOTE BAGS

Plastic grocery bags are some of the most common items we find littered along the waterways. Though they take 10 to 100 years to break down, plastic bags are used in masses on a daily basis. Because of their light-weight nature, they are easily blown from garbage cans or trucks, eventually winding up in—you guessed it—our waterways.


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3. DON’T USE THOSE PLASTIC STRAWS!

Many have seen the viral video of the sea turtle with a straw lodged in its nostril. (If you haven’t, check it out: https://bit.ly/2DmBHHi) If placed end to end, the amount of straws used in the U.S. in one day alone could circle the planet 2.5 times. For those who simply must use straws, there are metal straws that can be purchased from your local grocery store for $6-$10. Or, try reusing those larger plastic straws from souvenir cups.


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4. BYOC - BRING YOUR OWN CUTLERY

Similar to straws, plastic cutlery is a one-time use item with minimal weight that makes it a good candidate for long-distance travel on our waterways. When ordering takeout, consider declining cutlery and using your silverware at home. There are also plenty of options for reusable cutlery sets that you can keep with you for dining out. Some of these options come in nice little cases. Some are packaged as a pocket knife of cutlery. These items make excellent stocking stuffers or wedding giveaways (also serving a dual purpose as giveaways/utensils for the wedding meals).


5. PACK FOODS WITH REUSABLE STORAGE CONTAINERS

Throwaway sandwich bags have become a staple of the American packed lunch. They’re also a common find during river cleanups! You’ll help your wallet and reduce your chances of contributing to litter that’s blown from landfills, trash cans, or garbage trucks and into our water system. It’s also a great opportunity to teach the kids about reducing your household’s waste impact. Next time you pack your food to go, consider using glass or plastic reusable storage containers!

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6. RECYCLE!

While reducing waste is the best way to prevent litter in our waterways, recycling is still a great option to make a difference! If you haven’t already, sign up for your garbage collector’s recycling program. It’s estimated that 80 percent of plastic is not recycled each year.

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It’s going to take time for us to get this plastic crisis under control, but it’s in your power to start making a difference today. Any of these options are a good start!

We encourage you to begin eliminating those brief purpose, long-term presence items from your day-to-day routine. Just don’t try to make all of these changes at once. Be sure to ease into it with one item at a time so that it isn’t too overwhelming.

It’s a decision that will continue to make a positive impact on our planet for (450 to 1,000) years to come!

Keeping our waterways healthy and beautiful will do the same for our oceans. To find out how you can help to remove the plastics already in our waterways, visit www.KeepTNRiverBeautiful.org.

Read the previous installments of this blog series, “As Oceanic Trash Islands Rise, What You Can Do from the Tennessee River Valley”:

1/1 - published on 1.23.19

1/2 - published on 1.24.19

Part 2/3: As Oceanic Trash Islands Grow, What You Can Do from the Tennessee River Valley

Over the years in our increasingly hurried lives, we’ve developed the habit of using throw-away items like sandwich bags, plastic cutlery, straws, and fast food cups.

“Brief purpose, long-term presence items”

In the solid waste industry, these items are called “single-use items.” It’s a label way too benign for their effect. We should call them what they really are: Brief purpose, long-term presence items.

For example, scientists estimate that plastic straws will take up to 450 years to break down.

Now, stop and think about the amount of time you personally use a “disposable” straw. Is it three hours? Five? Let’s go so far as to say that you use it through one full waking day. Is your 12 hours with that straw worth its estimated 3,942,000-hour lifetime on earth? (Don’t forget, that’s just an estimate because straws haven’t been around long enough for us to actually watch them break down.)

We’ve all participated in today’s throw-away culture. It was an innocent societal step toward what seemed to solve our shrinking schedules. After all, asbestos was once a great solution to roofing ailments.

Is your 12 hours with that straw worth its estimated 3,942,000-hour lifetime on earth?

We now know that our plastic throwaway companions are causing vast environmental consequences, and those consequences are about to rear their heads.

A dead fish washed up alongside litter on Gulf Coast Beach.

Experts are sounding the alarm because fish have been found to be ingesting tiny bits of plastic. A study was recently released that found that 73 percent of deep-sea fish in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean had ingested plastic.

In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration opened the Gulf of Mexico to companies for aquaculture purposes in the hope of reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign fish imports.

We are about to be literally eating our problem—if we’re not already!

In the last installment of this blog series, we’ll explore some options on how you can personally stop plastic from entering your water (and food) systems. Click below to read the final installment of this blog series:

As Oceanic Trash Islands Grow, What You Can Do from the Tennessee River Valley
<—-Part 1/3 (Released on 1.24.19) | Part 3/3 (Released on 1.25.19) —->

Part 1/3: As Oceanic Trash Islands Grow, What You Can Do from the Tennessee River Valley

“Would you like that in a bag?”: A great blue heron catches a fish wrapped in plastic.

Believe it or not, litter from any location along the Tennessee River—even as far inland as Knoxville, Tennessee—can make it to the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s true! In fact, Knoxville is considered an international port because of its navigability to the Gulf. 

HERE’S HOW LITTER FLOW TO THE GULF OF MEXICO HAPPENS:

As you read this, additional litter is flowing toward an Atlantic Ocean floating trash island that’s long enough to cover the distance between Cuba and Virginia. In the Pacific, there’s another one between Hawaii and California’s coast that’s twice the size of Texas!

While conservation groups are working worldwide to remove the debris forming these floating wastelands, we’re going to have to change our culture in order to stop their growth once and for all.

If you live in any city along the Tennessee River, you have the power to help!  Click HERE to read Part 2 of this three-part blog series!

Christmas Break Activity: Explore Revealed Shorelines and Remove Litter on Your Own!

Low river levels in the winter provide a great cleanup opportunity—a fun way to get out on Christmas break!

Are the kids getting restless towards the end of Christmas break? Looking for an active, fun, educational activity to do before getting back into the routine?

We’ve got the perfect solution for you! 

It’s winter, so water levels of our river, lakes, and creeks are at their lowest. This is the perfect chance to take the kids out in nature and teach them how to be good stewards of our waterways by collecting litter from public park shorelines.

There’s nothing like an adventure of roaming the unveiled riverbeds where water is clearly supposed to be! Picking up litter along the way just adds more merit to your experience.

Be sure to bring boots or waders (closed toe shoes at the very least) that you won’t mind getting muddy. It’s also important to wear long-sleeved shirts and pants.

Here’s a quick list for a litter collection kit with which you can equip your group to make the most impact:

• Litter grabbers

• Work gloves

• Garbage bags (be sure to differentiate trash vs. recycling)

• Hand sanitizer (for when you’re finished)

Please be sure to share with us photos from your litter cleanup adventure, including where you explored as well as your litter loot totals! We’ll share them on social media to inspire others.

If your group has so much fun that you want to do it again, consider participating in our Adopt a River Mile program. It’s free, and we will provide cleanup supplies. We’ll even provide a free metal sign crediting your group for the river mile’s cleanly improvements!

Click HERE to read more about our Adopt a River Mile program and sign up today!

KTNRB Board Announces New Executive Director

Kathleen Gibi

The Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful Board of Directors is pleased to announce Kathleen Gibi, who has long served as Public Affairs Specialist for the City of Knoxville, Tennessee, as its new Executive Director.

Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful (KTNRB) is the first Keep America Beautiful affiliate in the nation to solely focus on a river. The non-profit has already rallied 703 volunteers to remove 55,655 pounds of trash from the river in its first three years, hosting cleanups in Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and Mississippi. 

“Protecting the beauty of our river doesn't happen by accident—regional and local action are key to conserving the Tennessee River waterways,” said Julie Graham, Board President and Executive Director of the Middle East Tennessee Tourism Council. “KTNRB serves as the regional entity to connect the local efforts.”

The KTNRB non-profit started shortly after Keep Tennessee Beautiful and the Tennessee Valley Authority sponsored Living Lands & Waters' Tennessee River Tour in 2015, which Gibi helped to conceptualize and implement. The tour stopped along six cities within three states as the Living Lands and Waters barge showcased trash removed from river cleanups along the way.

KTNB and TVA wanted to continue the work of Living Lands & Waters and created Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful, working in communities along the river’s 652-mile stretch to preserve, improve, and protect the river for generations to come. 

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Living Lands & Waters barge docked at Volunteer Landing in Knoxville, Tennessee during the 2015 Tennessee River Tour.

“We were all inspired by the collaborative energy that we experienced through the Tennessee River Tour, and we wanted to make sure to keep the momentum going,” said Missy Marshall, Executive Director of Keep Tennessee Beautiful. “Our team at Keep Tennessee Beautiful is eager to continue increasing our efforts together with our strong partners as we work to protect and beautify our river.”

Volunteers at a KTNRB cleanup held in October 2018.

Gibi is following the organization’s original Executive Director, Laura Howard, who has led KTNRB since its inception and currently serves as Environment Health & Safety Manager/Recycling Coordinator at Sevier Solid Waste, Inc. Howard will continue to serve on the KTNRB Board of Directors.

Laura Howard (left) and volunteer Lucretia Embry show off soccer ball treasures found in a KTNRB cleanup..

Gibi has served as Public Affairs Specialist at the City of Knoxville since 2004, first working in the Parks and Recreation Department under then Mayor (now Tennessee Governor) Bill Haslam and then moving to the Communications Department under Mayor Madeline Rogero. 

In 2015, the National League of Cities named Gibi as its Most Dedicated Staff Award recipient, a distinction she earned for her local collaborative efforts for First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Cities, Towns and Counties initiative (in which Knoxville and Knox County were ranked no. 1 in the nation). 

In her role with City of Knoxville Communications, Gibi has worked on communications for the Public Works Department, which included Parks and Recreation, Engineering, Public Service, Fleet Services, and Plans Review and Inspections. In Knoxville, she is responsible for initiating and organizing programs such as the Tennessee River Tour, the annual Father’s Day Fishing Event, the CrossKnox Race, and Neighborhoods to Nature.

“We owe so much to the Tennessee River—it’s a foundation for our economy, our health, and our culture,” Gibi said. “I’m looking forward to KTNRB collaborating with many regional partners along the Tennessee River in a continued effort to preserve its beauty and worth.”

KTNRB currently holds four annual river cleanups with assistance from Living Lands & Waters. The organization also coordinates an Adopt-a-River-Mile program.

For more information, visit www.KeepTNRiverBeautiful.org. 

CONTACT
Kathleen Gibi
865.386.3926 (cell)
Kathleen@KeepTNRiverBeautiful.org
www.KeepTNRiverBeautiful.org
www.facebook.com/KeepTNRiverBeautiful
Twitter: @TNRiverBeautiful