Did you know that your trash has a path?
Our mission at Positive Legacy is twofold: help people and help the planet. We love our Mother Earth and want to be a part of the solution to save her.
Did you know that more than ¾ of our planet is water? Water is life. Unfortunately our water systems - streams, rivers, lakes, oceans - are often abused and taken for granted. People generally don’t realize that everything from your storm drains flows to the ocean. There is also a strange misnomer that if you live somewhere that is not near the ocean then it is not your problem. However the ‘path of trash’ is long and windy.
Asheville, North Carolina is more than 250 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, yet has a path of trash that runs 2,050 miles through four rivers until finally landing in the Gulf of Mexico. You can learn more in this brief video:
According to the Surfrider Foundation, the Gulf of Mexico contains some of the highest concentrations of microplastics worldwide. Researchers hypothesize the large drainage basin of the Mississippi River, which outflows into the Gulf, is the main transporter of land based plastics in the United States and as we saw from the video, you don’t need to be near the Mississippi River for the trash to find its way there.
Our friends at One World Brewing (OWB) are working with Asheville GreenWorks (AGW) to host days of service in support of keeping their waterways clean. What is even cooler is AGW has installed Trash Trouts in eight locations across North Carolina and one in St. Louis, Missouri to help prevent trash from making it further into the waterways. Trash Trouts are purpose built stormwater litter traps that sit in urban creeks and streams keeping manmade trash from entering waterways. Each time it rains, trash is funneled through storm drain systems directly into creeks and begins the process of photodegradation, whereby petroleum based products such as plastics begin to break into smaller pieces known as microplastics. These tiny pieces of trash are in some instances consumed by wildlife but the majority of this debris will go on a long journey into our oceans. How great would it be to have Trash Trouts everywhere?!
Owner and Founder of One World Brewing, Lisa Schulz, had to say of their first day of service on the river and consequent music celebration held in honor of Earth Day. "It was so great to come together and connect with many people in our community who we have met at our brewery and seen at live music events there. We enjoyed being outside contributing to the environmental health of our home & community and living the concept of leaving a positive legacy."
One World Brewing created a Legacy Lager as part of our new Pours for Positive campaign which has just raised enough funds to purchase a tenth trash trout for AGW to be installed on the Haw Creek this fall.
Become a member of the Fan Club today and you can help keep the Positive Legacy heartbeat strong and this kind of good work alive!
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