Never Tire(d)

Only a week and a half ago we pulled three tires from the Speed River on the same cleanup. Surely, we thought, we were getting close to the bottom of the river’s tire inventory.

We were wrong.

As soon as we got into the floodplain we found another one, washed up and half-buried in dried silt. The river keeps restocking.

The Great Lakes have been in the news lately — they are special places that deserve our attention. To keep our lakes great, we spent last evening cleaning the Speed River: a tributary that flows into the Grand River, then Lake Erie, and eventually Lake Ontario.

After dislodging the tire we waded into the river to pull out plastic: tarps, single-use bags, a giant bin caught in the driftwood. There was metal too: a barbecue pit and a tailpipe, both dropped off for recycling.

With the sun setting, we loaded everything onto the bike trailer and rode it out, like we usually do.

Here is a quick video of our cleanup: