The Green Brook- Plainfield 6/12/21:

[AndyS]

6/12/2021 - Green Brook Park Cleanup - another trip to the Green Brook by the Central Jersey Stream Team resulted in another huge trash haul! A big thank you to Cathy Cole for arranging trash disposal by Union County Parks and providing supplies and to LiVay Sweet Shop in Plainfield for bringing delicious cupcakes in the morning to give a boost at the start! A big thank you also to Assemblywoman Linda S. Carter for joining us to discuss the trash and litter problem and listening to ways to address it.
With 15-20 volunteers, we had some picking up litter in the park and others dedicated to in-stream cleaning. We found the usual… tires (24 total), a whole shopping cart and 2 that came out in pieces, bike parts, lots of cans and bottles, miscellaneous plastic parts and more… but the day also included finding an entire car seat, mattress (one of many in various stages of decay), box spring, futon, TVs, stair climbing machine, electronic dart board, stuffed animals and so much more that you’d never expect to find in the stream. Particularly the amount of “fabric” items in this stream is crazy… mattresses, comforters, blankets, padding, rugs, clothes, etc that wrapped themselves around everything (also lots of plastic bags doing the same).

[anthrax2244]

Thank you Andy and the CJST for your efforts. I grew up in Green Brook and spent a lot of my youth wading the stream through town and into Middlesex. For such a small stream it has A TON of garbage in it, which all makes its way to the Raritan, the bay and the ocean. In summer between rain events, I encountered log jams that collected plastic bottles that covered the surface of the water for hundreds of feet. Lots of tires in the stream too. Behind the truck center across from what is now BowlMore there used to be tons of truck tires in the water.

Most of the garbage that ends up downstream comes out of Plainfield. Maybe if there was a city program to pay for people to recycle plastic bottles, cans etc like a $.05 a piece payment it would provide an incentive to reduce the problem.

[AndyS]

I also grew up on the Greenbrook fishing and trapping off Shepard Ave. on the Middlesex boarder. Back then just below the bridge was a bend with a fallen tree that we would sit on and catch all sorts of creek chubs and panfish all day long, the water was very clear. I still remember vividly going down there to fish one day and the brook was covered in dead fish, it seemed as if every fish that once lived in there was floating on the surface, devastating as a child.
I don't think we went back to the brook much after that. To this day the single biggest tire pull in one day was on the Greenbrook by Rt 28.

[FASTEDDIE29]

Just passed the Greenbrook headed north on Rock Ave. There’s a tire on the west side of the bridge. Good job gang!!