Saturday morning began cloudy as volunteers donned thick gloves and trash bags in preparation for the Anacostia Watershed Society’s annual Earth Day Cleanup. Soon the clouds gave way to sunshine and another beautiful day along the Anacostia River.

DC Water joined more than twenty volunteers to clean up around the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail between RFK Stadium and Kingman Island. This site was one of more than thirty different sites along neighborhood parks, streams, and creeks where passionate environmentalists cleaned up trash and debris that would otherwise flow into the river.

Team Blue helped collect a total of 44 bags of trash, 20 bags of recyclables, and about 25 pounds of bulk debris. Every bit of this trash collected brings us closer to achieving a cleaner Anacostia.

It was fitting that about fifty yards from the cleanup site, and dozens of feet underground, sits the Anacostia River Tunnel—an integral part of the Clean Rivers Project that has kept more than 1,100 tons of trash and 5 billion gallons of combined sewage and stormwater from entering the river since it’s commissioning this time last year.

Thank you to all that came out and showed the Anacostia some love!