SAN ANTONIO – It's the largest single-day waterway cleanup in all of Texas and its been going on for 25 years. It is known as Basura Bash and its powered by volunteers who take pride in their city.
Today students from Council Member Rebecca Viagran's "District 3 Legacy Leadership Initiative" joined representatives from the San Antonio River Authority to comb through the trash that piles up at the river's south end.
Volunteers opted for rain boots to walk along the stormwater channel named Six Mile Creek to collect anything from plastic foam items, plastic bottles, grocery bags and more.
Viagran wants more people to join the service learning opportunity that serves as an eye-opening experience.
"Even if something is littered or thrown on the northern part of the city, it all flows south," said Viagran.
Viagran, as well as some of the students in the leadership initiative, have participated in Basura Bash in the past. Maximillian Morise is a junior in high school who looks forward to the cleanup event because it draws attention to the need of monitoring of the creeks.
"If we want San Antonio to stay as beautiful as it is, we need to be able to help and support each other by making sure we all do our part in cleaning up," said Morise.
And although not always resulting from a malicious act, some of the most outrageous items seen by Viagran herself in other creeks include piles of tires, endless grocery bags and even shopping carts.
"We're trying to look at policy to make sure shopping carts can't necessarily go outside of the parking lots," said Viagran.
No shopping carts were spotted at Six Mile Creek Saturday morning, but at least a dozen trash bags were filled with trash that would have ended up contaminating the San Antonio River during the next rainfall.