From now until eventually the close of summer season, if you’re in the Washington, D.C. area and want to canoe down the Anacostia River, you can book a totally free canoe from the town supplied you adhere to one particular rule: You will have to use it to acquire litter.

The languid, shallow Anacostia has long been regarded as a polluted and trash-strewn river, although it can be pretty picturesque, but in latest a long time a major energy to clean up it up has been underway. Component of that is now this new Environmentally friendly Boats initiative inspired by a equivalent software in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Boaters can guide a canoe every Saturday as a result of August. They get a receptacle for litter and a very little picker to fish it out of the h2o. When they return, they are questioned to assistance kind the garbage so the town is familiar with which kind of trash is most prevalent.

The goal is not just to clear the river, but to get much more persons out there, boating, discovering about the river, and growing an affinity for it, to appear soon after the location. The Inexperienced Boats method, if all goes well, will be expanded into a fleet of free rental boats for every person, all the time. A library, but for canoes.

Extra at: DCist.