EVERYTHING COUNTS

One River at a Time

All Chad Pregracke meant to do was pick up some of the trash littering the bottom of the Mississippi River, where he spent so much of his childhood. Eleven years and 54,360 bags of trash later, Pregracke’s one-man effort in East Moline, Illinois, has turned into a major undertaking; his nonprofit Living Lands and Waters now organizes cleanups along six other rivers in the Northeast and Midwest. By the end of last year, his volunteers had cleared 497 tons of metal; 52,195 tires; 1,433 major appliances and enough polystyrene foam to cover ten football fields.

You may not be able to devote your life to river cleanups, but even spending an afternoon cleaning the shores of a lake, beach or river near you can be just as satisfying and has a significant environmental impact. And Chad will have a lot less trash to pick up the next time he’s in town.

To learn more, read From the Bottom Up by Chad Pregracke with Jeff Barrow, available at shop.nationalgeographic.com, or visit livinglandsandwaters.org.