Volunteers cleaned a stretch of the upper Big Piney River on Saturday — hauling off 55 tires in the stream and dozens of bags of trash.
The day was the annual effort to clean the stream, a major recreational venue for the region.
Peter Maki, one of the organizers, said 42 small and 13 large bags of trash were pulled out of the river. Among some of the items found: A 1950s car trunk, a large piece of carpet and burn barrels.
Maki said stream teams will try to develop a “market-based solution” for tires and other recyclables that are continually pulled from streams and rivers. “We need to reverse the present process in place for tires and give people $2 to $3 per used tire rather than a penalty of the same amount for leaving tires at the tire shops,” he said. With an incentive for aluminum cans, Maki said it would attract people to streams to pick them up.