Volunteers react to discoveries from High Line Canal Annual Cleanup: "Oh, we found some very interesting stuff"

For Cody Pourier and his family, this Easter weekend was spent hunting for something other than eggs. 

"Oh, we found some very interesting stuff... some needles, too," Pourier said.  

They along with dozens of others, volunteered their time for the High Line Canal Annual Cleanup, taking out pounds of debris from the trail, waterway and natural spaces near Expo Park.

"The generational impact is huge for us for sure and just showing that example to them early and we know that example is going to be given to them... if they can pass that on to their children, and hopefully, generations to come." he expressed. 

Walking through miles of the canal, volunteers collected almost 5,000 pounds of trash on Saturday, making the event the largest clean-up of the year for the city of Aurora. 

"Other sections have found shopping carts, some cinder blocks, Styrofoam, plastic water bottles, plastics grocery shopping," said Libby Hodgin, with the High Line Canal Conservancy. 

But along with the large items, micro trash in the canal is also very harmful to the ecosystem.

"That's where a lot of animals will end up ingesting them and so, the micro trash, as we call it, is even more important for our volunteers to focus on," Hodgin said. 

This is the first cleanup event of the year that the group is hosting. Together volunteers, like Pourier and his family, are making a difference with one piece of trash at a time.

"To keep our community beautiful," Pourier said. "It is really awesome to look back and see how beautiful this is and I hope they can walk away and be able to see that impact, how we can impact our community in such a small little way, and it goes really far." 

To learn more about the next clean-up event, visit: https://bit.ly/3Mto3Xc