Trash bags in hand, more than 70 Superior residents combed the local waterways for trash and debris as part of Alliance for the Great Lakes’ Adopt-a-Beach Cleanup in September. In all, they collected 1,055 pounds of litter from various sites throughout Superior. Volunteer cleaners included University of Wisconsin-Superior professor Dr. Lorena Rios Mendoza and several of her students, staff from the city of Superior’s Environmental Services Division, Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve, Superior Boys and Girls Club, St. Luke’s Mariner Clinic, Superior Sunrise Rotary, AAR Corps, AMI Engineers, Douglas County YMCA, Girl Scout Troup 4321 and Wisconsin Sea Grant, and other Superior residents.
Collected litter included 590 cigarette butts; 129 aluminum cans; more than 1,000 food wrappers, containers and utensils; more than 1,500 small pieces of plastic, glass and styrofoam; a couch; a washing machine; a snowmobile windshield; and a golf hit-away net and carpet.
Along with tidying up the Superior waterways, Mendoza and her student garbage pickers collected valuable data which will be used by researchers to develop solutions to pollution problems.
