Photo Courtesy of the Zender Agenda, Flickr Creative Commons
If you’re looking to kick off a weekend of environmental-awareness fun with some good karma, the Alliance of the Great Lakes and the Burning River Foundation are combining forces to combat pollution at Whiskey Island's Wendy Park on Friday morning.
The effort comes in the wake of the discovery that microbeads — those scratchy exfoliation agents found, unfortunately, in such products as your apricot face scrub — sneak their way through sewage plant treatments and end up in the tummies of fish and other wildlife in streams, rivers and lakes, causing toxic harm to the creatures and royally screwing up the food chain. Thankfully, legislation is up in Ohio to ban the little plastic bastards (you can push the effort along by finding and contacting your respective legislator here).
From 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Friday, you can get in on the action by participating in a cleanup of Wendy Park and the surrounding beach. Lend a hand to the (mouthful of a) Great Lakes Science Center’s Great Science Academy Adopt-a-Beach team by picking up trash in the area.
Then, reward yourself and stop back at Whiskey Island for Burning River Fest on Saturday and Sunday for a brew, some good eats and live music (view the complete lineup of musical performances here).
While you’re there, be sure to check out Plastic Waters, an exhibit that showcases what the Alliance and the Adopt-a-Beach program have done to reduce pollution across the Great Lakes.
