MOUNT VERNON — This year’s Kokosing River Rally took place over the weekend (Sept. 13 spcifically), drawing dozens of volunteers to lend a hand and six dumpsters worth of trash pulled from the river.
Volunteers launched kayaks, canoes and paddle boards from two different starting points as they floated down the Kokosing, filling their cans, boat hulls and onion bags full of trash.
“We used general, regular-sized Dumpsters and filled up about six of them this year and we got 107 tires this year,” Knox County Recycling & Litter Prevention program manager Matt Baugher said.
The hope is always for the amount of trash and tires collected to go down year after year.
However, Baugher said the number of tires volunteers collected this year is slightly up from last year.
“I think our 100-some tires are slightly inflated because that is also counting tires we collected at the spring cleanup this year that still needed to be picked up at our volunteer dumpster,” Baugher said.
“So, the number is 40-ish higher than last year, but like I said, I think there’s a slight inflation on those numbers.”
This was also the first time Baugher and his department did not have to spend money out of their budget for trash disposal.
“We had a lot of great partners this year, CES Credit Union sponsored our t-shirts, and Republic Services donated all of our trash containers for the river rally,” Baugher said.
Baugher said locals who are looking to help out in other ways should check out the nonprofit Friends of the Kokosing Scenic River.
“We [Friends of the Kokosing Scenic River] do both recreational and litter prevention events because those things go hand in hand together,” Baugher said.
