Anacostia River shopping carts

Kayaks full of river trash, including shopping carts. Bladensburg Waterfront Park, MD. 27 January 2024.

Kelly, Ani, and I recently got back out on the Anacostia River after 10 days of winter ( ice on the river). We noticed 7 shopping carts in a couple km of river. We managed to load and remove 3 of them, so there still is more to remove later.

While a shopping cart can make life easier inside a grocery store, they aren’t really built for aquatic habitats. They are heavy, usually require wading into the river and digging the cart out of the river bottom. Shopping carts are not designed with loading onto kayaks in mind – they never feel secure. In addition to not really loading securely, once loaded a shopping cart will have weight distributed too high above water line (making the kayak unstable) and drag wheels in the water (creating hydrodynamic drag and directional issues).

You can’t leave shopping carts in the river. In addition to be unsightly, shopping carts in a river are navigation hazards. In a tidal river (or any water body with fluctuations in depth), they can be lurking just below the surface waiting to take a bite out of your kayak. The presence of shopping carts attracts more trash, which increases the hazard – both navigational and biological.

I can’t imagine that throwing a shopping cart into a river brings anyone joy. It takes a bit of work just to get a cart to the river, let alone in the river. However, it is less effort than removing a shopping cart from a river.

The three shopping carts in the photo (2 from Target, 1 from Giant Foods) all had store names. Based on past experiences the store will not come to the park and retrieve their carts, let alone go into the river and retrieve them.

In closing, I would like to encourage all of you to please return your shopping carts to designated areas when you are done shopping.