SALT LAKE CITY — Trying to keep Utah’s rivers, streams, and waterways free from trash. That’s the goal of those with the nonprofit group, Fish for Garbage.
They’ve been around for a decade now and are celebrating the anniversary with another season of cleanups, including a big one this Saturday. Board President Jared Winkler says Fish for Garbage started as a very simple concept, “Saw a need to rally folks together to pick up trash! We were mostly fishermen who would walk around rivers and see garbage and pick up garbage.”
You name it, and Winkler says they probably fished it out of a stream or river. “A lot of flip-flops, a lot of plastic water bottles, cans, tires. It’s kind of funny we still live in an age where somebody is driving down the road and throws an empty can out their window and that makes it way down into the river.”
That initial group of volunteers quickly grew, leading Winkler and others to form a nonprofit. All of it is run by volunteers like Winkler and Robert Flores. For Flores, the group can always do more, "And it’s disheartening to see the beautiful areas that we recreate in just have substantial amount of garbage, and I think we can do better, we can do more.”
Over the past decade, the Fish for Garbage gang has retrieved more than 100,000 pounds of trash from places like the Provo, Weber, and Green Rivers, plus the Cottonwood Creeks and Strawberry Reservoir.
Robert Flores says it’s time and effort well spent. “You feel a sense of accomplishment, you feel a sense of pride, you feel a sense of ownership that you own that clean up and that waterway.”
The volunteers donate their time, and Winkler says any sponsorships or money that comes in go right back into the operating budget, “Basically buying garbage bags, buying rubber gloves, renting Porta potties, renting dumpsters, and other sorts of things.”
Through it all, Winkler is especially proud of the impact Fish for Garbage is making on his two young daughters, who often come along on the cleanups. “And so they just know not to litter, they know to pick up after other people, they find enjoyment of actually picking up trash… which is kind of weird to say. But it doesn’t bother them. They like to leave something looking better than they found it, and so it makes me feel good as a father.”
Robert Flores says in an ideal world, they’d show up to an event and see that there was no garbage. He knows that is highly unlikely, so the Fish For Garbage crew will kick off their 2025 summer cleanup season this Saturday at the Provo River. It gets underway at 9:00 a.m. at Timpanogos Park in Provo.
Last year, they had nearly 400 volunteers show up, so they are encouraging folks to pre-register on the website, fishforgarbage.org
