Another year of trashyaking on the Anacostia River: 2023

Last load of 2023. Anacostia River, MD. 29 December 2023.

The 2023 Anacostia River trashyaking year has ended. 2023 saw 108 trashyaking trips on the Anacostia River. During those trips we removed 137 car (or greater) tires from the river (total tires in 3.3 years = 548) and 287 bags of plastic trash (total bags in 3.3 years = 851). We do not count what goes into the trash bags, but if we do the math it is crazy. The bags are mostly full of 500 ml single-use water bottles. There are larger bottles, but we also have many of the little alcohol nip bottles. We use 50 gallon trash bags, and let’s say we fill them to 90% capacity. 45 gallons/bag x 851 bags x 8 500 ml bottles/gallon = ~306,360 plastic bottles that Kelly and I have removed from the Anacostia River over the 3.3 years we have been trashyaking on the river. (2022 info)

It is a beautiful river under all the trash. Beaverdam Creek, DC (an Anacostia River tributary). 24 December 2023.

Of course it isn’t all tires and plastic bottles. We also removed: a 4′ fluorescent bulb (intact), 15 5-gal plastic buckets, 5 backpacks, 3 BBQ grills, 1 baby stroller, 1 bicycle, 1 bike pump, 1 boat bumper, a camera, a can of paint, a canoe paddle, a bucket seat from a car, 11 chairs, a child’s car seat, clothes, a commercial fan, 3 coolers, 3 cooler lids, a corner hutch, an e-scooter, 2 e-bikes, fabric, 4 fire extinguishers, 2 cast nets, 8 fishing poles, flooring, a hand gun, hubcaps, 8 IPads, 7 large plastic toys, 1 kiddie pool, 6 cooking pots, large plastic pots, garden tools, 3 suitcases, 4 mattresses, a microphone, a microwave, 8 milk crates, cash register tray, 5 cushions, pipes, hoses, 8 plastic totes, 5 large pieces of auto plastic, 2 plastic cinder blocks, 6 plastic foam sheets, 3 pool noodles, 2 purses, 2 r/c speed boats, 3 rodenticide bait stations, plastic shelves, a flag, 7 shopping carts, signs and signposts, a snorkel, 9 tarps, a toilet seat, 9 traffic cones, 1 traffic barrel, a trash can holder, a tricycle, a truck spring/shock assembly, 1 umbrella, a wall phone, 2 5-gal water dispenser plastic bottles, and 2 wheelie trash bins.

Dueling Creek at sunrise. Dueling Creek, MD (another Anacostia River tributary). 29 December 2023.

Of course the Anacostia River isn’t clean, so Kelly and I will still be pulling trash in 2024. Luckily, we are not alone. We could not have done any of this without the support of the folks at Bladensburg Waterfront Park. I cannot overstate the importance of having a strong partner’s assistance.

Trashyaking in print!

Kelly and Anacostia (and the Anacostia River) made the National Parks Conservation Association’s quarterly magazine! We ran into Tyrone Turner and he took a bunch of photos. He even met up with us the next week and paddled with us! You can view the article here: https://www.npca.org/articles/3665-the-long-and-winding-recovery

Tires everywhere!

When I saw this photo my first thought wasn’t the rare bird, it was the tires. On the Anacostia the shorebirds I see are primarily peepe and plovers. Occasionally I see yellowlegs, but my observations are that shorebirds avoid tires as tires provide cover for predators. I do not know if godwits share this behavior or if there are just so many tires that they are avoiding the tires or if being able to see over the tires makes them not as scary, but this photo screen shot from Facebook clearly shows shorebirds and tires sharing space.

Tires are littered everywhere. A modern tire is an engineering marvel, but tires, like plastic, do not recycle well. Eventually we, as a society, will demand tires that are not disposable. Until then, scenes like this will be more and more common.

Kayak repair: welding plastic.

As I was getting ready for a recent kayak camping adventure, I noticed a sketchy bit on my kayak’s keel. Being as a similar spot exists on my other kayak and it was easily patched with a Gator Patch, I slapped a patch on my kayak and was good to go.

All the plastic welding supplies: leather gloves (it is hot), alcohol (cleaning), heat gun, plastic for welding, pliers, screwdriver (very useful), and a kayak with two small holes (which I greatly enlarged to facilitate the repair). NE DC. 4 December 2023.

However, a patch is a temporary repair. The Gator Patches on my other kayak and Kelly’s kayak have were placed months ago and are still fine. The patch on this kayak was quickly destroyed by beaches and rocks in just about 30 days, and now my kayak was taking on water through two holes where the patch once protected the keel.

All done. NE DC. 4 December 2023.

So, I decided to take up plastic welding on a fine December day. I picked up a 1/4″ slab of HDPE #2, some Kydex plastic, a heat gun, and marine adhesive – kayak repair is about to get real! First I cut some welding rods and a patch from my HDPE#2 and made sure to capture the shavings (the shavings were an excellent welding material). Then I scrubbed the area to weld, finishing with alcohol. After the kayak was dry, I began the process of welding. I should have practiced on something else, but I just jumped in. I was surprised how squishy the kayak became and how ridiculously oversized the 1/4″ HDPE#2 was. The welding went swell! It isn’t pretty, but there is a bunch of plastic welded on the keel. But wait there’s more…

I saw some internet videos where people made keel guards out of a hard plastic called Kydex. Kydex, thermoforms with the same heat gun you weld with but needs adhesive to stick to the kayak. This was crazy easy. In 3 days (after the marine adhesive is cured) I will be able to see if the kayak still floats!😉

My kayak is now repaired and protected. It should be good to go for a long time!

Special note: trashyaking can be hard on kayaks. A low tide trashyaking adventure may involve numerous beach landings with heavy loads which creates some pretty extreme kayak wear. I think next time I have a new kayak, it will get a spiffy Kydex keel guard before it hits the water. The Kydex will hopefully make it so my kayak produces less microplastics via beach abrasion.

Remember to inspect your kayak before use, because repairs on the water are always sketchy. Plastic kayaks are not indestructible. I have once paddled home with a softball sized hole (stuffed with raincoat and duct taped into submission) and once climbed out of a river canyon, and hitch hiked back (because nobody carries that much duct tape). Both of these would have been avoided with a proper pre-trip inspection.

Rainbows are much better than oil slicks

At the end of a long, cold day of trashyaking in the rain, as I was dropping the trash load, it stopped raining. Even though I was cold and wet, I thought it may be fun to go check out the gull flock on the mud flats upstream – so I hopped back in my kayak for a bit of sightseeing. While I was paddling between mudflats, I noticed a strange colorful sheen on the water. What I initially thought was an oil slick, ended up being many reflections of a rainbow that made me smile when I finally looked up at the sky.

Rainbows are much better than oil slicks.