Want a trash-free Missouri River? You can help clean up this huge community asset

The Missouri River once played a vital role in the development of many cities along its stretch, but that time has now passed. The river has since been neglected by its communities, and today suffers from illegally dumped and improperly disposed of trash. That’s why Missouri River Relief exists. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting individuals and communities to the Missouri River through education, recreation and stewardship. During our cleanup events, we seek to build an appreciation of the Missouri River in our participants that creates both long-term best practices and instills a sense of responsibility for their natural resource.

Missouri River Relief has identified that the communities in which it serves are now eager and willing to assist the river, but often lack the resources and knowledge to convey that care through continued stewardship. People are often unaware that their actions cause watershed pollution such as when litter on the street is washed by storm water into municipal drainage systems. Our cleanup programs intertwine both stewardship and education which is then taken back to their communities, creating effective long-term solutions to our problem while removing several tons of trash from the river.

The myriad pollution in the Missouri River needs to be addressed. Some 43% of Missourians receive their drinking water from the Missouri River, and these contaminants are difficult to remove in the treatment process. Wildlife is also negatively impacted, both biologically with ingested plastic causing animals’ strangulation or internal organ failure, and chemically with pharmaceutical pollution leeched from littered pill bottles.

The main objective of our programs is to educate the communities which we serve on the causes and outcomes of trash improperly disposed of, while creating a sense of responsibility for their natural resource through hands-on stewardship activities with tangible results. Missouri River Relief accomplishes our objectives through our large-scale cleanups that engage volunteers in stewardship along the Missouri River, which enforce the causes and effects of improperly disposing of waste and instill a sense of responsibility for natural resources. Our cleanups are community stewardship and education events that puts volunteers on the banks of the Missouri River to work in teams to remove tons of trash, hazardous household waste, trash tires and recyclable goods from the banks.

As a celebration of 20 years cleaning up the Missouri River, Missouri River Relief will launch a two-month-long rolling cleanup program — the Big Muddy Clean Sweep, covering nearly 200 miles of remote river. Following our Kansas City cleanup on Aug. 21, our team of experienced boat operators and volunteer crew will travel downstream, targeting areas of high-density trash for proper removal and disposal until reaching our final destination at Cooper’s Landing near Columbia. We will work with hundreds of volunteers to remove tons of trash from the riverbanks and floodplain.

Learn more about what we do and how you can join us this Saturday at our website, riverrelief.org.

Kevin Tosie is operations manager for 501(c)(3) nonprofit Missouri River Relief.

This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 5:00 AM.