HICKORY, N.C. — The City of Hickory is working to keep litter out of its waterways.

What You Need To Know

  • A new trash trap will help stop floating litter from entering the Catawba River
  • This helps the efforts of local volunteers who clean up litter around Hickory
  • The Hickory Citizens Litter Project is run by Todd Byrd and Bruce Hooker

The city recently partnered with the Catawba Riverkeeper to install a stream trash trap on Horseford Creek in Glenn Hilton Park.

A trash trap is a litter collection device used to capture floating litter from storm water runoff, the city said.

They say storm water litter accounts for 75% of manmade trash in urban creeks and streams.

The news of this trap, which is not installed yet, is exciting for a volunteer-run group that picks up litter around Hickory.

The Hickory Citizens Litter Project is run by Todd Byrd and Bruce Hooker.

“I think it will make a tremendous difference,” Byrd said.

The two started this group three years ago, after discovering a shared passion for keeping the city clean.

“Instead of complaining about it, we ended up just saying, let’s just do something about it,” Hooker said. "I like my neighborhood to look nice. And when other people drive through it and litter, it kind of upsets me.”

"We connected and we combined our efforts under the banner of the Hickory Citizens Litter Project,” Byrd said.

They say their groups is usually out cleaning most Saturdays in the fall, winter and spring, but they take a break in the summer because of the heat.

They say the new trap will help their efforts, because it will collect trash before it enters the Catawba River. 

The city says when it rains, trash along roadsides and other types of pollution that harm aquatic life and degrade water quality run off into storm drains and get carried into local waterways.

So far this year, Byrd says they’ve collected at least 400 bags of litter from the streets.

They encourage other people to get involved too.

Hooker and Byrd suggest just cleaning up litter within your own neighborhood, maybe on your daily walk or just on your street.

“The litter is so pervasive in this part of the country that it's something that we have to be constantly vigilant about,” Hooker said.

The city says the Catawba Riverkeeper currently maintains four trash traps across the Carolinas, and this new one will be the fifth trash trap added to protect the Catawba River Basin.