Fourteen volunteers turned out for today’s Arakawa River Clean Up at Funabori and collected 80 bags of trash (77 actual bags + roughly equivalent of 3 bags on the large unbagged items). Much of this trash was from the spectators who watch the boat races, so there were a lot of cans, which go in the small bags, making the total a bit high. As planned we used the shade of the over C2 highway to stay out of the sun. Actually, up on the top of the bank there was a cool breeze blowing in from Tokyo Bay and the river, and in the shade there it was probably the coolest place in Tokyo. At the very end, there was an odd experience. On the way back I found some umbrellas that we had not picked up and was taking to them to the trash pile in the dark. A homeless guy was there and he had taken all 32 bags of the cans and had them packed into three huge 90L or maybe 120L bags and was about to haul them away on his bicycle to sort out the aluminum. I don’t know what aluminum cans sell for but it couldn’t be worth more than Y200-Y300 in value. I was a bit concerned about what he would do with the steel cans which have no value and one bag of spray cans (bug spray, natural gas cooking cans, personal care products, etc.), so I asked him to be sure to return anything he didn’t sell. Hope they don’t end up back in the river.
Arakawa River Clean up August 29, 2021
