The Great Global Cleanup
The Diary of Texas Cleanup On Its 30th Anniversary
March 11, 2025
Michael Karapetian, Great Global Cleanup Coordinator
Basura Bash’s 30th anniversary cleanup tackled Texas trash, uncovering plastic pollution, odd debris, and the dedication of volunteers fighting for cleaner waterways.
The Diary of Texas Cleanup On Its 30th Anniversary
Winter is a weird time for the cleanup movement—trash, much like the weather, freezes in place, sometimes even in Texas. Ironically in early 2025, the Lone Star State experienced unseasonably cold and wet weather when in January a rare Gulf Coast blizzard brought significant snowfall to some parts of Texas.
San Antonio felt the effects of this too, with temperatures dropping to a record low of 21°F on February 20. These conditions were unusual for the region which typically enjoys milder winters., and could be partly linked to climate change. But as the cold season started to subside, the trash started to defrost and the opportunity to get outside and pick it all up finally came around.
That’s why I was glad to kick off 2025’s cleanup season at Basura Bash, a massive cleanup event hosted annually by River Aid San Antonio. This event, now in its 30th year, spanned more than 25 cleanup sites across the city, bringing together thousands of volunteers to remove trash from San Antonio’s greenways.
Originally scheduled for late February to avoid peak snake season, the event was postponed to early March due to the unusually cold, wet weather. Upon arriving at Seco Creek, where I’d volunteered to join a cleanup – I met up with my fellow volunteers, grabbed my gear, and headed down beneath a bridge where the creek, now bone dry, had left behind a staggering amount of trash.
When I first started doing cleanups in San Antonio, I was always surprised to see plastic bags caught in the trees like ugly garlands. How did they get there? Was there some hidden group of plastic bag enthusiasts randomly climbing trees to hang plastic bags about like confetti? It turns out, no! The flooding in San Antonio is the culprit. When the creeks flood, the water carries debris—including plastic bags—over a wide area. As the water level rises, the bags get carried into the branches of trees. But once the water recedes, the lighter bags are left behind, stuck in the trees, while the heavier trash settles on the ground or gets buried in the dirt and creek beds.
While I was keen to get to work, I made a fatal mistake on this cleanup straight out the gate.. Despite River Aid San Antonio warning me several times to wear long pants for this event, I didn’t. I am so used to doing beach cleanups on the coast of Florida, that I instinctually put on my cleanup shorts for this event – a mistake I would pay for. Between the thorns, brambles, and shrubs, it is not a mistake I will ever make again.
Thankfully, the local wildlife, snakes, and tarantulas, seemed to steer clear of our cleanup crew. Either that, or Mother Nature was just respecting our work.
The infamous giant wooden Spool!
The Spool in situ!
As we moved from bridge to bridge, we stumbled upon a massive wooden spool, half-buried in the dirt alongside a memory foam mattress and a disintegrating couch. They were lodged between several trees and the spool looked like it had been thrown over the side of the road into the creek, after whatever utility company was done with it. Dear utility crews in Texas, please do not do that again!
A group of us teamed up to free it from the trees and roll it up to the road for pickup. Beneath it? Layers of plastic bags, crushed into the soil over the years. While we hacked through the mess, I overheard volunteers cursing the plastic, “I wish we could go back and find the guy who invented this stuff.” I completely agreed with them, if only we could turn back time!
For hours, we hauled trash—plastic, industrial debris, old bedding, clothes, packaging, buckets, old signs and buckets of who-knows-what—out of the underpass and onto the bridge, where it would later be picked up.
In a freeway-heavy city like San Antonio, it’s no surprise that trash accumulates like this under bridges and in the green spaces between roads. Whenever it rains, plastic waste is swept up and without cleanups like this, it would travel downstream to the ocean, breaking down into microplastics along the way. These tiny fragments don’t just harm wildlife—they infiltrate water systems, contaminate our drinking water, and ultimately end up in all of us.
By the end of the day, our site alone had removed at least 2,000 pounds of waste. Multiply that across every cleanup site, and you get a staggering amount of trash.. I can only imagine what other crazy items other volunteers found in their cleanups.
Just some of the trash we collected awaiting pick up
