A traffic cone, a rubber duck and bags of plastic: cleaning up Colorado’s South Platte River

More than 40 volunteers showed a little love for Denver’s South Platte River on Oct. 28.

Environment Colorado and our national network’s Clean Water Network partnered with the Colorado Water Trust, Can’d Aid, Patagonia Denver and EVO Colorado to host a Platte River cleanup. The South Platte is a primary source of drinking water for the Denver metro area and provides water for farms and ranches on the Eastern Plains.

“The river runs directly through downtown Denver, picking up egregious amounts of trash on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. What we let happen in our backyard watershed has dramatic impacts for the many communities and ecosystems downstream,” said Kristine Oblock, Clean Water Network coordinator.

Our group cleaned more than a dozen bags of waste out of the river and captured dozens of photo petitions in support of clean water and our Wildlife Over Waste campaign.

Photo: Volunteers sort the trash they cleaned out of the South Platte River. Credit: Philip Huffeldt, Wool Hat Creative