Annual Earth Day Cleanup
Rahway River Watershed Association
All volunteers are invited to celebrate Earth Day 2023 with a clean-up of the Rahway River with Union County Parks and Recreation’s Rahway River Park on Saturday, April 22nd (with a rain date of Sunday, April 23rd).
The clean-up will focus on areas upstream and downstream of the dam at Winfield Park, New Jersey in Cranford, Clark, Linden and Rahway. Please come by the parking area adjacent to the waterfall of the Rahway River by the Bloodgood Dam at Winfield Park at 8:45 to register, pick up bags, gloves, bottled water and snacks, and receive safety information. Teams will be encouraged to travel to any part of the river within the park where they would like to perform cleanup activities. We specifically ask all folks to register and to work in small groups for safety purposes. Everyone under 18 must have their parent’s signature on the attached Individual Waiver form as well as adult supervision to participate.
Cleaning up a river and park area is a great way to celebrate Earth Day and if you haven’t participated in an event like this before, you will find it invigorating, and you will feel good about what you have accomplished…it is also fun and educational…especially for Scouts and young adults as they always find something interesting. Over the 25 years this cleanup has occurred thousands of folks have participated, and pulled some amazing things from the river improving its quality.
The clean-up will generally be between 9 a.m. – 12 p.m., but any amount of time or effort that folks can volunteer is appreciated. There is always a large volume of floatable debris to pick up. The team working registration will provide suggestions on areas with large volumes of floatable debris.
All participants should wear jeans, long-sleeved shirts, gloves and boots, waders are welcome for folks who like to get a little wet. Each participant should bring a standard 5-gallon carry bucket with a handle (put your name on the bottom)…this makes for easy carrying of “stuff” for transfer to the large garbage bags. A mulching rake is also a great asset to have to enable reaching out and pulling debris into shore from the river bank. After the event there is an inventory of the debris removed, and within approximately 24 hours Union County Parks and Recreation removes and disposes of all the trash.
There is no RSVP required but if more information is required please contact rivercleanup@comcast.net or the Rahway River Watershed Association at CleaCarchia@outlook.com.
