The garbage flotilla that got away

Paddling the LSU Lakes and canals around them, Claude Nall is a one-man, camera-carrying green movement. From his kayak he scans the shore daily to create photographs of bird life.

He usually comes home with more than pictures, though: bags full of empty beer cans, discarded plastic bottles and all other manner of trash. But in March, he spotted a flotilla too big for his grassroots volunteer effort—a virtual raft of garbage.

So he placed what was, for him, a routine call to the Department of Public Works to report yet another egregious instance of waterborne trash. Turned out “some idiot” had unbolted a trash-collection boom in a canal that runs along the southwestern edge of LSU Lakes and then flows under Stanford Avenue.

Nall told DPW personnel that, if not picked up quickly, the trash would wash downstream with the next heavy rain. Sure enough, heavy rains came and washed away some of the trash.

But, Nall points out, DPW employee Shane Nicholas stepped up to make sure the trash collection boom was reattached to its mooring and the remaining garbage was picked up.

“We have a major litter problem here,” says DPW Assistant Director David Guillory. “We can’t pick it up quick enough. You would be amazed what we find in these nets. Fire extinguishers, couches, you name it.”

DPW usually checks the nets monthly, more often during football season tailgating.

“What’s needed,” Nall says, “is public education as to the long-term effects of litter.”

To that end, Nall, who retired after 40 years working in auto body shops, has created something he calls the Green String Society. Anyone who makes a personal commitment to reduce litter gets a green-string bracelet.

“If you see something on the ground, pick it up and throw it in the trash,” Nall says. “If everybody did this, there wouldn’t be a litter problem.”

If you’re interested in joining him, visit facebook.com/pages/Green-String-Society/199246403429175.

Or, look for Nall out on the water in his kayak most mornings.