The LRWP and SEWA volunteers went out to the litter trap in the Green Brook on Saturday, August 9th, 2025, to conduct a litter tally. Huge thanks to our SEWA International Central Jersey youth partners! Thanks to their efforts, we’ll have much better data on how the litter trap keeps our watershed clean. Learn more about the litter trap initiative here. And learn more about the LRWP’s litter tally project with SEWA here. Below, you’ll find Sewa’s Nilesh Bhat describing the litter we picked up and conditions surrounding the litter trap.

Blog post by Aasmi Bora

This past week, the litter trap was heavily impacted by the flash floods that occurred on 7/31. Unlike our usual schedule, this cleanup was after two weeks and not one. The trap had accumulated hundreds of tree branches: caught inside, lodged under it, or beside it. Luckily, with the help of our Sewa volunteers, we were able to completely remove all of the organic matter surrounding the litter trap, restoring its ability to freely collect waste without any obstruction.

This week, we collecting the following litter from inside the trap:

• 11 shot bottles
• 1 prescription container
• 20 plastic bottles
• 1 glass bottle
• 1 bottom of a basketball hoop
• 1 soccer ball
• 1 marker
• 1 headlight
• 1 cigar 
• 8 aluminum cans
• 1 eye drop 
• 1 nail separator 
• about 20-30 pieces of styrofoam 
• 1 tire
• 1 wooden slab
• 1 juice box

We also found litter outside the trap:

• 6 glass bottles
• 1 hand sanitizer 
• 1 lighter
• 1 tennis ball
• 22 plastic bottles
• 4 shot bottles2 plastic container 
• 2 eye drops
• 1 half of an easter egg 
• 5 aluminum cans
• 4 plastic bottle caps
• 1 fishing bobble
• 1 straw
• About 110 pieces of styrofoam 
• 1 test kit
• 1 plastic piece
• 2 slabs of insulation
• 1 shovel bottom 
• 1 shoe
• 16 plastic bags
• 2 balloons
• 1 piece of glass
• 1 marker

             This week, we observed that the majority of the styrofoam we collected had been damaged by fire. The styrofoam pieces were also much larger in comparison to what we have collected in the past. There was also a multitude of building materials in the collection this week.

Finally, we found a large fishing spider hiding among the trash in the debris!

             As we have been conducting this project for the past few weeks, we have been exploring ways to improve the litter trap’s design. This week’s cleanup allowed us to witness how organic matter, such as a tree branch, was able to act as a net and catch a large portion of the litter that was collected in the trap. We found that organic matter is used in many countries, especially in smaller villages, to prevent the debris from moving forward. Often known as debris barriers, the use of organic matter is especially convenient when collecting smaller pieces of waste like Styrofoam which can be tedious to collect by hand due to the size of some Styrofoam pieces. However, we also have to consider that these natural barriers may require some upkeep in order to remain effective.

This cleanup was very insightful and provided us with more ways to make the litter trap a much more convenient and more efficient mechanism.