On Saturday, May 2, 2026, 104 participants from Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School alone signed up to take part in RiverSweep. This annual event began in 1989 as a 1 day cleanup around Cleveland.
In over 36 years of running the event, there has been considerable contributions made. There have been over 22,000 volunteers, which have helped recycle over 25,305 illegally discarded tires along with picking up almost 1.5 million pounds of trash.
This event, despite only occurring once a year, has had indisputable effects on Cleveland. Not only has it cleaned up waste in the environment, benefiting animals and communities, but it has also encouraged the creation of new parks and trails.
This year, similar to previous years, volunteers from the high school dedicated their time to help with the event. Beginning at 7:45, students met at the high school and broke into various groups based on their graduation year. From there, each group drove down to one of the dedicated sites to begin cleaning up and picking up trash.
These students worked at various sites until 11am when they met up once again to get food and a free T-shirt.
Throughout the cleanup time, students found numerous interesting items. This photo is one of the things the sophomore bus found. In the bushes on the side of the road there were numerous wigs wrapped around handfuls of needles and medicine bottles.
Students uncovered a mattress deep in the woods on the side of the road. These students used creative thinking skills to extricate the unwieldy mattress from the side of the road.
The sophomores also stumbled upon illegal food dumping. They spent the majority of their time collecting boxes and bags packed with miscellaneous foods.
Jordan Welch and Grey Hileman, volunteers on the sophomore bus shared some more interesting findings. Hileman found it shocking to find so much garbage in confined areas. “I did find interesting items while cleaning up, specifically a shopping cart and some wigs,” says Hileman.
Sophomore Jordan Welch shares that he found it surprising to find “an overwhelming amount of vomit and bottles of discarded cola”. He also shares his finding a traffic cone.
Many students also found discarded tires. Freshman Jack Twyford, says that his volunteer group collected a total of around 20 tires. Twyford also explains that he came across many other interesting and surprising items such as bullet casings, needles, and condom wrappers. He says, “The slightly surprising part was the kitchen and bathroom dumped on the side of the road!”
After the event, volunteers were treated to pizza along with a free t-shirt.
For many, this event has become a tradition. Junior Carina Kosla shares her experience with the event as she has been attending since her freshman year. She explains, “It’s very disheartening when you pick up trash and realize that it is impossible to pick everything up. For example, I stood in one spot in the woods for 5 minutes trying to pick up thin pieces of plastic, and I still couldn’t pick everything up because of the sheer abundance of trash.”
Movements like these display some of the challenges Cleveland faces. Despite constant waste and unethical practices becoming more popularized, it is important to take initiative within communities. The findings from this year just like previous years show there is a lot to improve.
Some photos of volunteers
