Starting Jan. 1, the District will levy on shoppers a 5-cent fee on disposable plastic bags. The money raised will help pay for the cleanup of the Anacostia River, where some of the bags end up. Richard Walls helps pick up those bags and some 120 tons of trash each month on a skimmer boat for the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority.
Where does the boat go?
It goes on the Anacostia River, the Washington Channel and the Potomac down to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and up to Key Bridge.
What types of things do you collect from the rivers?
Mostly floatable debris, which is paper plates, tin cans, plastic bags, bottles.
How many plastic bags would you say you pick up each day?
It depends on what’s out there. We don’t really go out there specifically for plastic bags, but if we see one we pick it up. Five or six, seven or eight, something like that when we go out.
Do you go out every day?
Every day five days a week, eight hours a day.
What’s the weirdest thing you have pulled from the surface?
The other boat operator pulled a deer out of the water, so I remember that.
A deer?
When we pulled to shore, he just jumped off and went down the street somewhere. … We had a lot of rainfall from Great Falls, he came down and we just picked him up on a skimmer. He was so much out of wind, he couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t fight. We put him on shore. He took off.
What’s it like being out on the water every day?
I enjoy being out there every day. … We dress for it. But you know our boat’s climate controlled so we’re in pretty good shape. … We have two skimmers, two scouter boats and one tow boat in case one of the boats breaks down. A skimmer boat picks up the trash, a scouter boat goes out and finds the trash.
– Kytja Weir
