The beautiful Lake Tahoe flows on the California-Nevada border in the Northern Sierra Nevada, U.S. Despite its amazing water purity level of 99.994 percent, the lake collects a lot of debris throughout the year. To resolve the debris from the lake, a Californian NGO Clean Up the Lake organized a cleanup drive with several volunteer scuba divers. They aimed to clean the debris and remove some trash from the lake’s 72-mile shoreline. But what they found under the lake’s surface was astounding.
According to the NGO, the scuba divers pulled out more than 25,000 pounds of submerged trash from Lake Tahoe with highly pure water. The divers recovered various items from the lake, such as wallets, Nikon cameras from the 1980s, large boat pieces, lampposts, plastic bottles, and even a diamond ring.
Image: Los Angeles Times
It took them around 81 days to complete the cleaning project. The team of volunteers includes scuba divers who picked the trash manually, as well as special crews on ships to collect oversized items from the lake’s bottom.
Their next target is to figure out what to do with all the collected trash. The NGO says that some of it will go for recycling. And, the remaining trash will go to the local artists who would turn the trash into a huge sculpture to spread awareness about water pollution. After completion, the gigantic trash sculpture will be displayed at the lake.
According to Tahoe Fund CEO Amy Berry, the creation of the permanent art sculpture using trash will convey a positive message. They hope that a trash-containing art sculpture in this stunning location will inspire better environmental stewardship. It will also remind people coming to the lake to take care of the environment without littering the area.
Image: CBS News
Via: Eco Watch