The LRWP and SEWA volunteers went out to the litter trap in the Green Brook on Saturday, June 28th, 2025, to conduct a litter tally. The water was low, with minimal trash flows. 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 Aasmi Bora describing the litter we picked up, as well as her initial thoughts on why so much litter gets buried in sediment before it reaches the trap.

Guest post by Aasmi Bora

The litter trap is a device that is designed to collect trash and debris before it can end up in larger bodies of water, like the Raritan River. Its main structure is a chute-like mechanism, shown in the picture below, supported by two buoyant pipes (or booms) which keep it afloat.

How effective is our litter trap? To evaluate the effectiveness of the Litter Trap, we conducted an analysis of the waste found both inside and outside the device.

Here’s what we found inside the Litter Trap:

• 4 small liquor bottles
• 2 markers
• 1 small plastic ball
• 1 basketball
• 1 fishing bobber
• 8 plastic bottles
• 1 plastic eye dropper
• 3 aluminum cans
• 1 unopened cigar packet 
• 1 piece of plastic
• A large amount of styrofoam (mostly too small to 
• pick out individually)

In comparison, this is what we found outside of the Litter Trap:

• 1 toy train
• 1 teddy bear
• 7 aluminum cans
• 2 plastic bottles 
• 2 plastic wrappers
• 1 shoe sole
• 3 pieces of glass
• 1 piece of fabric
• 1 shoe sole
• 1 plastic utensil 
• 1 base of gumball dispenser 
• 2 plastic bags
• 2 tires
• Many more pieces of plastic
• More styrofoam 
• Seat cushion

Why might the Litter Trap be capturing less trash than what is found outside of it?

We began to explore further up the stream to identify possible causes. We noticed how most of the debris was getting caught on tree branches as well as being embedded in the stream bed. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that the shallowness of the stream could be the main culprit. 

During our exploration of the Green Brook, we found a section of the stream with a stronger current than where our litter trap currently rests. We predict that if the litter trap were repositioned in faster current then we would see a better accumulation of debris in the litter trap. As we continue to explore the functions of Litter Trap we aim to find solutions to enhance the design and effectiveness of the device.