The trash in Little Hunting Creek this year was worse than it’s been in recent years. On April 11, volunteers worked at eight cleanup sites extending from the channelized portion of the creek behind Mount Vernon Plaza downstream to the Potomac River shoreline. They picked up 203 bags of trash and recyclables, 10 tires, and 34 shopping carts, along with tons of other debris: rain-soaked mattresses, rugs, and clothing, wheel chairs and a walker, sign posts, lawn mower battery, TV, lawn chairs, wheel barrow, coolers, a dock float, a 6’x8’ part of a shed, jugs of motor oil, and more.
Two sites were standouts this year, and not in a good way.
Napper Road in Gum Springs
In Gum Springs, volunteers encountered a serious littering situation caused by non-residents who park their cars along Napper Road and discard large amounts of fast food trash. In addition, volunteers hauled out debris, garbage, and rain-soaked clothes, bedding, and other belongings from an abandoned homeless encampment. Thanks to site leader Bryan Birch’s successful recruiting efforts, there were enough volunteers to handle it all—we had the best volunteer turnout ever at this cleanup site, and they collected a mountain of trash and debris.
Janna Lee Avenue bridge
The area near the Janna Lee Avenue bridge has for years been the trashiest site in the cleanup, and this year was the worst it’s been in a decade. The main problem: dozens of shopping carts from nearby big box stores such as COSTCO, Walmart, Home Depot, etc.
Volunteers occasionally find a single cart in the woods that a homeless person has taken to carry their belongings.
But the situation at the bridge this year was different, with large numbers of carts still jammed together, as if an entire row of carts had been wheeled off a store’s lot, then dumped into the creek.
The local COSTCO manager told me their store has lost over 500 carts to theft. Shopping cart theft is clearly a problem for the retailers. When they are dumped in Little Hunting Creek, they present a real challenge to volunteers who struggle to haul them out. Check out this video of several determined ladies pulling a ride-on shopping cart out of the creek.
Thanks
We thank the site leaders, who have organized cleanups at their sites for years if not decades: Senator Scott Surovell and Delegate Paul Krizek, who (along with site leaders Fatimah Dandashi, Carla Claure, and Don Mark) led cleanups at Janna Lee Avenue bridge, Mount Vernon Plaza, and Audubon Estates; Bryan Birch, at Napper Road in Gum Springs; Greg Crider at Colonel John Byers Park; Jennifer Giunta, at Brady Street in Riverside Estates; Carrie Howe at Fort Hunt Elementary School; and Dan Murrin, on the Potomac shoreline. Thanks also to Potomac Riverkeepers and Good Shepherd Church’s Creation Care Committee, who participated and recruited volunteers. We thank Fairfax County for picking up the debris that volunteers collected.
Most of all, we thank the 92 stalwart volunteers who did the backbreaking and often disgusting work of picking all that trash up. The creek and surrounding marshes, woods, and neighborhoods always look much better after our efforts. 2026 is the 24th annual cleanup conducted by the Friends of Little Hunting Creek, and we all wish it wasn’t necessary to keep cleaning so much trash out of Little Hunting Creek year after year after year.
Trash trends
The trash situation was worse than it has been since 2022. Shopping carts in particular were a bigger problem than they have been in over a decade.
Next steps?
First, it must be acknowledged that the situation has improved over the past 15 years, due to changes in the law (the bag tax), the trash trap installed by the county behind Mount Vernon Plaza, and (most significantly), Operation Stream Shield, the county program that pays homeless people to clean up trash from county streams and remove invasive vines from natural areas. This program helps homeless people get on their feet and has been a godsend for the creek: over 600 bags of trash have been collected from sites on Little Hunting Creek, greatly reducing the burden on cleanup volunteers. We learned that Operation Stream Shield was not operating in our part of the county last year. Their absence made a difference, especially at sites near Route 1, and we hope that Operation Stream Shield will soon be back up to speed.
Second, it’s time to resume efforts to pass legislation to address the shopping cart problem. I’ve begun conversations with Supervisors Storck and Lusk, and Senator Surovell. Stay tuned for reports on progress.
Third, dare we hope that this year might be the year Virginia adopts a law requiring a beverage container deposit? The bulk of the trash we pick up is water bottles, beer and soda cans, and beverage containers of all sorts. Bottle deposits are the only way we know of to address this source of litter.
