Wendela engineer Miguel Chavez climbed down a ladder and over a small dock Wednesday to pull a trap floating in the Chicago River near the Michigan Avenue Bridge. The size of a standard trash can, this trap is designed to collect trash and can hold up to 44 pounds.
Mr. Chavez banged on the trash can three times, dumping its contents into a garbage bag. At first glance, it looked like a pile of brownish wet leaves and twigs.
“Once you start sifting through it, it becomes much easier to find the trash,” he said.
While large pieces of trash are not as big of a threat, plastic debris from food and product packaging, and the smaller pieces left when it breaks down, is a persistent problem that impacts wildlife, water quality, and public health. It's surfacing.
“It's no longer the dumping ground it once was,” said Margaret Frisbie, executive director of the nonprofit Friends of the Chicago River. This is due to accidental contamination.” “What we found were shopping carts, couches, tires, old pipes. … It was large and messy, but not in the form of trash that we see today. There will be less waste and it will never disappear completely because it is plastic and it breaks down.”
In 2023, the Capital Water Reclamation District used skimmer boats to remove 675 tons of debris from the river. The company collects an average of 745 tons a year, a spokesperson said. The City of Chicago's skimmer boats also regularly remove trash along the Downtown Riverwalk.
According to a study led by Loyola University Chicago aquatic ecologist Tim Whaelein and undergraduate student Caitlin, 75% to 95% of debris collected in rivers is plastic, and 58% of trash without discernible debris. It is said to be food related. Hyatt.
Shortly after setting the trap last summer, Mike McElroy, director of marine operations for Wendela Tours and Cruises, discovered a plastic dinosaur toy when he emptied the trap one day. Trap's official mascot, Trappy the Dinosaur, is now a symbol of the many different types of substances that pollute the river.
The trash trap is the first technology of its kind used on the Chicago River to remove trash and learn where it comes from and what it's made of. Such devices are typically used in marinas with slow tides, but this device has been modified to withstand rapid changes in river water levels due to heavy rain.
It works by using a submersible pump to suck water and debris from the ground, trapping the debris in a catch bin and pumping the water out.
“From day one, trash was being pulled out of the river, even things that we couldn't easily see with our eyes,” McElroy said. “What we pulled out was very interesting. We got shoes, Dorito bags, Styrofoam in amazing numbers and quantities.”
common topics
The Chicago River, which flows from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, connects this region to the rest of the country and the world. And plastic waste is a common thread running through these diverse water systems.
“It's happening in our rivers, it's just not happening in the ocean,” Frisbie said. “It's not just happening far away, it's happening right here.”
Not surprisingly, the Chicago River's litter composition mirrors the composition of lakes in the region. The Alliance for Great Lakes, a regional nonprofit organization, found in a recent report using data from more than 14,000 beach cleanups over 20 years that 86% of the trash that enters the Great Lakes each year is partially or completely plastic. It turned out to be composed of.
A 20-year study found that 86% of trash in the Great Lakes is plastic. And plastics are “just getting smaller and smaller.”
“The other day I saw someone throw leftover lunch bags against the wall on Wacker Drive,” Frisbie said.
Large plastic items such as single-use bags, straws, wrappers, takeout containers, and tableware eventually break down into smaller plastic particles. The smallest of these particles (less than 5 millimeters long, or the size of a pencil eraser) are called microplastics, and they have been found in teleost fish in the Great Lakes, drinking water, and even human blood, organs, and breast milk. I am.
“A lot of what we find is debris,” Whalein said of the river trash collected in trash traps, which Loyola University students are helping to sort and characterize.
Most of these fragments are usually smaller than 1 inch. Lentil-sized pellets called “nurdles” used in plastic manufacturing make up between 5% and 20% of his weekly finds. Styrofoam debris that breaks down from food containers also poses a ubiquitous problem.
“In some cases, there are too many to count, and we have to estimate,” Whalein said.
“We're finding a lot of this stuff, too,” Whalein said, holding a pick of green dental floss. “I hate floss.” He quickly found another green one, but its color was noticeably faded.
In his research, he said that almost all the fish he observed in the Chicago Calumet River system contained some form of microplastic.
Despite these findings, advocates say the Chicago-Calumet River system is healthier now than it has been in the past 150 years, in a “remarkable renaissance.” The river is home to all kinds of animals, including migratory birds, beavers, and turtles, as well as 80 fish species, up from less than 10 in the 1970s.
“This shows us that Mother Nature is healing herself,” said McElroy, who is leading Saturday's cleanup at Lucas Berg Nature Preserve in Palos Hills. “I think we were able to get to this point because of the efforts of Friends of the Chicago River and other organizations and (through) the Clean Water Act. What would we do without it?”
When McElroy started working for another boat tour company in 1988, he said he couldn't even see the bottom of the river on a clear day. Now he can do it.
“I can't believe it,” he said. “The water is now very clean.”
Frisby said restoring the river's health will require a multifaceted approach, starting with a tunnel/reservoir program to reduce combined sewer overflows (a system of deep tunnels and wide reservoirs for flood control). ), which occurs when the city's pipes for stormwater runoff and sewage are overwhelmed by rain, sending untreated human waste into rivers.
The second step involves improving the disinfection process of sewage wastewater or treated water by using chlorination or ultraviolet light to remove pathogens and bacteria. The nonprofit organization has also focused on championing nature-based solutions, such as planting trees and creating parks to absorb rainwater and reduce runoff into waterways.
In April, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency issued the city a new National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit to manage 184 city-owned outfalls that discharge into the Chicago Calumet River system and the Des Plaines River. The new permit is more stringent and requires additional strategies to reduce pollution from sewage and trash.
“The final piece is this trash,” Frisbee said, and that's where the river will need to be cleaned.
Frisbie said the new permits issued to the city also include expanding trash management techniques such as skimmer boats and trash traps to remove plastic pollution along the 256-mile stretch of the river..
Researchers, organizations and companies are also considering installing more trash traps along the river. McElroy said Wendela plans to install it at the Chinatown water taxi station in Pintom Memorial Park, and Whaelin hopes to expand the scope of the study by partnering with other companies based along the river. That's what it means.
chicago river day
Since 1992, Friends of the Chicago River volunteers have picked up nearly 2 million pounds of trash from the river and its banks to help restore aquatic ecosystems.
The group's 32nd annual signature event on Saturday will draw more than 2,000 citizens, politicians and business teams spread out across 87 locations across the city and suburbs, up from 80 locations last year and 77 locations the year before last. It increased from there.
“People are really starting to understand this issue,” Frisbie said. “They want the places they live to be healthy and well-maintained.”
Registration for Saturday's cleanup must be done online at chicagoriver.org and will be accepted until capacity is reached at each site. Walk-up volunteers may be able to participate, but the organization warns that space is limited.
Volunteers also remove invasive plants such as garlic mustard, buckthorn, and honeysuckle from Chicago Park District and Forest Preserve locations as needed.
But river restoration efforts shouldn't be a one-time endeavor, advocates say. Saturday marks the beginning of a new season for the nonprofit organization's Chicago Calumet River Litter-Free initiative.
Individuals and organizations can host community cleanups through the nonprofit's Litter-Free Supply Station network, which has 13 locations throughout the watershed. Each station is stocked with tools such as trash pickers, buckets, bags, and gloves, as well as toolkit instructions in English and Spanish.
Environmental groups can use data collected by volunteer citizens and research scientists to make their case, which can form the basis for policies to curb overproduction and overreliance on plastic products.
“Over the past 20-30 years, the personal use of single-use items has skyrocketed. Everyone drinks one, sometimes three, cups of coffee every day. I think that's the case,” Frisbee said. “We can fight back. Metaphorically speaking, we have redirected the river. I believe single-use plastics can be recycled as well.”
adperez@chicagotribune.com
