Cleaning the River
Some people my wife knows remove rubbish from the river once a month so I went along to experience something new again.
Here is the Asagawa River in Kanazawa with the snowy mountains in the distance. The land is quite flat until you hit the mountains.
I had wellington boots but my wife had waders to go out into the river. I felt a bit humiliated walking around the edge collecting small pieces of litter. But a couple of passers by showed appreciation of my work.
After around 1.5 hours it seemed like we had gathered most of the rubbish and we had recovered some interesting stuff including brand new Walkmans, remotes and cables.
We left the stuff in bags for collection by the refuse people the next morning. Strangely, the people I was with didn’t keep any of the items even though the video cables were better than the ones I later saw in their appartment and one of the remotes was new and priced at 3,000 yen which is around $18 (£15) ??? I thought they seemed ok being in sealed packaging.
In Japan people have to take certain items to a special reclamation area and cannot leave outside with the usual junk. So, some throw these items into the river.
Later on the process was to light lanterns across the river side. Here, the girls are pouring rape seed oil into the burners for the lanterns. And here are the lanterns glowing in the night:
I wondered how long we had to stay with the lanterns but thankfully, it started to rain 
and we had to pack up and go for a party of food and drinks 
The people were artistic types into dance, meditation and stuff so I didn’t understand much about what went on that day but I enjoyed some weird food and some laughs in the apartment. I made a big mistake in letting a red hot chilli pepper into my mouth which made my lips and tongue burn for a while though.
Anyway, I will need to back to the river people since they have got a contact that can help me become “an agent from God” in wedding ceremonies and earn some extra income.
Here’s their website: River Cleaning – they don’t get many visitors so if you have time, please check it out.
no way! In Japan even rivers filled with electronics??? Why I born in Ukraine? ;D
Andy, can you please tell if any dSLR float around you? I would agree on any model even half working and shouldn’t be necessarely Nikon made ;D
I still can’t understand correctly understand why people throw this stuff at river… I saw that in Germany people put old or half-working devices to street and our crew gladly take it, repair and use for years after this, but throwing working staff is something I can’t understand
Just thought that if we had rivers here filled with such “garbage” some people would live in the river regulary cleaning it, not just once per month
BTW is there was any regular garbage like empty bottoms, packages and other non electronic related stuff?
Comment by SensoVision — March 13, 2006 at 10:37 am
I guess Nikon dSLR’s may be a bit hard to spot because I guess they would sink and get buried in dirt since they are heavy items? But if I probe around a bit, I guess I should be able to pluck a few out of the water
New stuff in plastic containers tend to float and get stuck in reeds etc.
Sure there is plenty of regular garbage too, not just electronics. At least 2/3 items is non-electronic
Comment by blogmaster — March 16, 2006 at 5:07 am
Andy, you should get yourself diving mask so can effectively get items from the bottom, as not only water surface need cleaning from SLRs
Comment by SensoVision — March 17, 2006 at 8:56 am
Great article. I am just sad I dont know how to reply properly, though, since I want to show my appreciation like many other.
Comment by Bonifacius — April 7, 2006 at 6:28 pm
This kind of reply will do just fine, thanks! Many people take part in cleaning the river. Part of the benefit is showing passers by the activity going on to clean up rubbish the citizens threw in the river and hopefully the message will spread that it’s not right to dispose of things in this way.
Comment by blogmaster — April 9, 2006 at 5:54 am