Climate Action
Cleaning Up and Tracking Trash in Rock Creek Park
June 23, 2025
Terran Fielder, Media Specialist, EARTHDAY.ORG
Cleaning Up & Tracking Trash in Rock Creek Park
Date: Thursday, June 5, 2025
Location: Washington, D.C., Rock Creek Park
Weather: Hot and Humid
Mood: Curious and Excited
Location: Washington, D.C., Rock Creek Park
Weather: Hot and Humid
Mood: Curious and Excited
Rock Creek Park is a 1,754 acre city park located in the capital of D.C. Officially designated as a national park in 1890, it was the third ever national park created by the government. Unlike the other early national parks, Rock Creek Park was intended as an urban park to preserve natural space within the city and prevent urban encroachment.
On Thursday, June 5, from 3 to 5 PM, along with Sarah Davies, our Director of Communications and Media, and Aminah Taariq-Sidibe, our Manager of End Plastics Initiative, I had the opportunity to care for this special slice of history.
We weren’t alone. Representatives from Rock Creek Park were present, along with members of 5 Gyres, an organization dedicated to ending plastic pollution through science and advocacy.
3:00PM – Arrival on site
When we arrived, the park looked surprisingly clean at first glance. But we knew better. We’ve learned that from other clean ups that once you start looking for trash, you can’t stop seeing it. Everywhere!
So we geared up, with gloves, grabber tools, reusable tote bags, and headed off in pairs to begin scanning beneath the trees and bushes. Within minutes, it was clear: what looks clean isn’t always clean. We started finding trash, and a lot of it. Plastic bottles, lots of fast food chain cups and boxes, cigarette butts, the dreaded single use water bottles, a mass of broken glass and some miniature gin bottles! We were off the trash races as it were!
3:15PM-5PM – Get this trash out of here!
We didn’t just pick up garbage; we collected data. Using 5 Gyres’ TrashBlitz app, we logged everything we found. This free tool lets volunteers like us track the types of trash they are finding based on materials, location, and even brand.
This data then becomes part of a global dataset used to understand waste and help shape effective plastic policy at local, national, and international levels. It’s also hoped that one day it will hold the plastic polluters like the soda and fast food industry to account. They bear none of the cost of picking it up, or the damage it does to our health and wildlife. That’s just plain wrong.
4 PM:
We did find a brand new tennis ball that we donated, with the owner’s permission, to a very friendly golden lab called Bella, But she ran off with it before we could get a photo! At least some trash can be sort of recycled!
When we arrived, the park looked surprisingly clean at first glance. But we knew better. We’ve learned that from other clean ups that once you start looking for trash, you can’t stop seeing it. Everywhere!
So we geared up, with gloves, grabber tools, reusable tote bags, and headed off in pairs to begin scanning beneath the trees and bushes. Within minutes, it was clear: what looks clean isn’t always clean. We started finding trash, and a lot of it. Plastic bottles, lots of fast food chain cups and boxes, cigarette butts, the dreaded single use water bottles, a mass of broken glass and some miniature gin bottles! We were off the trash races as it were!
3:15PM-5PM – Get this trash out of here!
We didn’t just pick up garbage; we collected data. Using 5 Gyres’ TrashBlitz app, we logged everything we found. This free tool lets volunteers like us track the types of trash they are finding based on materials, location, and even brand.
This data then becomes part of a global dataset used to understand waste and help shape effective plastic policy at local, national, and international levels. It’s also hoped that one day it will hold the plastic polluters like the soda and fast food industry to account. They bear none of the cost of picking it up, or the damage it does to our health and wildlife. That’s just plain wrong.
4 PM: We did find a brand new tennis ball that we donated, with the owner’s permission, to a very friendly golden lab called Bella, But she ran off with it before we could get a photo! At least some trash can be sort of recycled!
“I really like how 5 Gyres has integrated technology into citizen science with the TrashBlitz app. It’s a great example of how everyday people can contribute valuable data to inform policy and drive change.”
4:30PM
We have a quick catch up with Aminah who is logging everything she finds with admirable accuracy. I notice they are finding the tiny stuff nearer the river side of the park and we seem to be finding the bigger trash items on the edges of the park, where it borders the side-walk. Clearly people just use the park as a dumping ground for their fast food lunches. Slightly annoying as there are loads of trash bins.
5:00PM By the end of the afternoon, we had picked up and logged 494 items! Which amounted to two large sacks of waste! Of those items, over 3/4 were made of you guessed it – plastic. The top offenders; fast cups and food wrappers, bottle caps, glass bottles and a ton of cigarette butts.
You might not know this but cigarette butts are a major source of plastic pollution because their filters are made from cellulose acetate, a type of plastic that does not biodegrade easily and can persist in the environment for years.
When littered, these plastic filters release thousands of microplastic fibers and leach toxic chemicals into soil and waterways, harming plants, animals, and potentially entering the food chain. Despite their small size, cigarette butts are the most commonly littered plastic item worldwide, making them a significant and dangerous form of plastic trash. And we found a zillion!!!! Not good.
Another top polluter were tiny plastic pellets called nurdles. Nurdles, which are the pre-production pills in many plastic products, are a growing concern as they are small enough to evade casual detection but large enough to wreak havoc on wildlife by leaching plastic chemicals into the environment. These pellets were found near the river bed and likely washed from upstream plastic production plants, like RCR01.
Cleanups like this one serve more than the environment; they connect us to nature and to each other. It’s social, it’s impactful, and — in its own way — it’s actually fun. Having said that, we wish we didn’t have to do them and could go for a hike instead!
“I didn’t realize how big Rock Creek park is but to have this lush, green open space in the middle of an urban setting is a true blessing. We need to take care of it. So we will be back!”
At EARTHDAY.ORG, we believe that we must end our dependence on plastic and save the panel and us, from plastic pollution. That starts with awareness, continues through action, and is sustained by data. Our trash data tells the story of what we let infect our environment. Join us as we commit to End Plastic Pollution and consider setting up your own clean up event HERE.
