Speed River Trail

Elliot and I hiked on the shore of the Speed River and found one tire buried in the silt, a rusty metal bike on the shores, and enough broken down pieces of plastics and Styrofoam to fill three bags. Elliot wasn’t mad, just disappointed:

This is the main river that floats through the city and accumulates water from various draining channels (all of which are equally filled with garbage). The small side-stream pictured above is the tributary that Meg helped clean a bit upstream — and whatever garbage does not get cleaned makes its way into the Speed and eventually the Grand and Lake Erie.

The bike we found is too heavy to travel too far downstream, but the tires and metal leaching into the water are a hazard to wildlife (we dropped it off at a metal recycling facility, which is a better place for it):

The tire was lodged in silt, and it took some effort to dislodge it. After weighting it (20kg), we rolled it to our car to drop off at a tire recycling center. In rivers tires are particularly toxic to fish: