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canoeing and litter collection

Intensate

New Member
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 .
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
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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
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