canoeing and litter collection

[Intensate]

Does any one else enjoy being on a river?
I built a canoe 6 years ago when my mum bought a house next to a river.
I did it for fun at first and soon discovered how mindful it was and it helped my over all well being.
As I went out i saw there was a lot of litter in the river so I thought why leave it there and bought a litter picker.
This I soon realised it was even more mindful as I am so focused on looking for litter I zone out in the moment and it helps me clear my head of life's worry's and anxiety's
In time I posted on a facebook local forum page and people were really interested in what I did.
I made some life changing special friends through it and so then I set up a dedicated facebook page .
Its been so successful that we reach 6-12000 people a week now.

We now also do River fly monitoring each month on our 2 rivers so we know the health of them which sets a trigger level so if it goes below the trigger level the Environment Agency will then check for pollution
etc.
I also have got of my comfort zone a and faced my anxiety head on making good changes at the local town council level.
I have just this week done my best ever press story and video a thing 3 years ago would have me melting down with anxiety,over time I have found the coping strategy's so my aspie doesn't stop me doing what I want to do .

 

[unperson]

nice raft!

 

[GadAbout]

Being near a body of water is calming and soothing to most people. I regret that I live so far from the coasts. At one time, I lived on the West Coast and enjoyed the ocean and other bodies of water near me.

 

[oregano]

Here in urban California volunteer cleanup crews find all sorts of bizarre stuff in bodies of water. A crew in Stockton dragged an ATM machine out of a canal, it had been broken open to get at the money but nobody could figure out where it came from or who owned it. In Oakland a bag of fine Victorian silver was found in Lake Merritt, another big head scratcher, they were showing it to the media to try and find who owned it.

 

[tducey]

Nice job, thanks for sharing.

 

[Misery]

3 of the 4 houses I can be at are next to water. One is by a lake, one is by the ocean, and the third is near a river. The river is the one I see the most frequently.

...It's also the one I'd never, ever get near.

You see, there is a sewage/waste treatment plant on the other side of it. Directly next to the river. It produces this hideous stench every now and then that could knock out a horse on the other side of town. Seriously, it's bad.

Yeah. No way in heck I'd go in that river.

Also the water is often high and very rapid. I live in Illinois, which is pretty much storm central in the US.

Other than the river of slime though... the water at the other two is usually nice.

 

[Mia]

I'm glad you do what you do Intensate, wish everyone thought in the same way. Then our bodies of water would be cleaner and garbage free.

 

[FreeDiver]

Back when I live up in Idaho over 35 years ago. My mom had a house on the river and I built this raft using parts from a dock and strapped a 5hp motor to it. It didn't move vary fast in the water because of the poor arrow(hydro)dynamics. BTW: if you gotta ask? YES! That's me and that's what I looked like when I was 12 years old.

 

[Intensate]

We find all sorts of stuff dumped,this year we have pulled over 3 tons of litter out.
This year we have had over 25 shopping trolleys,20+ bikes,heaps of traffic cones,1 safe,a bed frame,heaps of childs push chairs,road signs,20+ dog poop bags yuk,15+childs scooter's,4 sharps from drug users which is down from 20 from last year.
50% of what we get is alcohol related from our street drinkers.

We have done what we can to educate our towns folks.We have a Rivers Day festival and the raft was launched to educate people about single use plastic. We had a stall and I made sculptures from the beer cans