January 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 47

NRPA, Coca-Cola and Others Take on the
Plastic Pollution Problem in Atlanta
By Michele White

lastic waste plagues cities, often ending up in waterways. An average
8.8 million tons of plastic waste enters our oceans from waterways
around the world every year. The problem may span the globe, but
solutions can start locally, right in your local park.
NRPA has partnered with The
Coca-Cola Company, the city of
Atlanta, West Atlanta Watershed
Alliance, Groundwork Atlanta, Park
Pride and the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency Region 4 to tackle the problem in Atlanta's Proctor
Creek watershed. While the city has
been working with the community for many years to address issues
around litter and illegal dumping,
storms continue to wash significant
amounts of trash into Proctor Creek.
Together, the organizations are installing trash-catchment systems in
the watershed to test a localized solution to the problem.

Community Faces
Environmental, Health and
Economic Challenges
The Proctor Creek watershed flows
through several Northwest Atlanta
neighborhoods. The area is home
to approximately 60,000 people, has
served as an incubator for African
American civil rights leaders and
houses several historically black universities and colleges. But decades
of disinvestment and discriminating
policies, such as redlining, have created environmental, health and economic challenges for residents.

Testing Solutions
Through the project, two technologies - the Litter Gitter and the

Bandalong Litter Trap - are being
installed and tested at four different park sites throughout the watershed. Community members also
will receive green jobs training and
learn about recycling. Some will
learn how to maintain the traps, as
well as how to use the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Escaped Trash Assessment Protocol
(ETAP) system to collect data on
the trash captured in the traps.
The Litter Gitter, a small-stream
litter collection device, uses
floating booms that guide trash
into a collection container. The
Bandalong Litter Trap is a large,
industrial-grade aluminum system
that uses the water's current to
guide debris into a litter trap. The
Coca-Cola Company provided a
grant to NRPA to support the city
of Atlanta's installation of these
devices. Currently, five Litter Gitters are installed at three different park locations in the Proctor
Creek watershed, including Grove
Park, Center Hill Park and Proctor Creek Greenway - Boyd Elementary. The Bandalong will
be installed in early 2020 at the
site of the future Proctor Creek
Park. Data collected on the types
and amounts of trash captured
will be used to inform best practices about mitigation strategies,
so communities can determine if

Five Litter Gitters, such as the one pictured, and one Bandalong Litter Trap will
help capture trash before it washes into
the Proctor Creek watershed in Atlanta.

these solutions would be valuable
in their waterways.

Local Project Contributes to
the Bigger Picture
The project supports The CocaCola Company's global World
Without Waste (www.coca-cola
company.com/stories/world-with
out-waste) goal to recycle and reuse the equivalent of 100 percent
of the bottles and cans it sells by
2030. Coca-Cola plans on working
with the Proctor Creek partners
to recycle and reuse the bottles
collected through the new trashcatchment systems.
This project demonstrates the
ability of public-private, philanthropic partnerships to help provide clean, trash-free water while
providing local green jobs and educational opportunities.
Michele White is Program Manager,
Conservation at NRPA (mwhite@nrpa.org).

W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G | J A N U A RY 2 02 0 |

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January 2020 - Parks & Recreation

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