The Environmental Club at Texas A&M University-San Antonio encourages students and employees to volunteer to clean up Indian Creek at this year’s 24th annual Basura Bash 8 a.m.-noon Saturday, Feb. 17.
Volunteers will meet at 8 a.m. at Divine Providence Church, 5667 Old Pearsall Road for a complimentary breakfast. Cleanup starts at 9 a.m and is expected to end at noon.
“What makes Basura Bash so crucial is that you can take action at your nearest waterway in San Antonio and directly benefit the area you live in,” said Alyssa T. Lilly, the Environmental Club’s president and founder. This will be the club’s second year joining the event.
The event, organized by the San Antonio River Foundation, is dedicated to helping clean San Antonio’s waterways and educating the population about water pollution and how to preserve natural resources.
In the past 20 years the event has helped to clean 44.96 tons of recyclables from the the city’s waterways, according to basurabash.org.
Because the event is spread all over the city of San Antonio, it allows volunteers to be active in cleaning the area where they live. Volunteers from A&M-San Antonio will be cleaning up the same waterway from last year, Indian Creek in District 4.
Lilly said there were approximately 3,000 volunteers city-wide last year. She became involved with the Basura Bash when she was still a student at Southside High School.
When the biology major first came to A&M-San Antonio, she says she was looking for a club that would allow her to assist in maintaining the environment. When she realized there was no Environmental Club, she decided to start one herself in Spring 2017.
The Basura Bash was the first event in which the club participated. Last year there were five volunteers from the club; Lilly hopes the number of volunteers from A&M-San Antonio will double.
Lilly recalls last year’s event and how her group saw some spiders, spider webs and a garter snake about 10 feet away. The event organizers provided them with reach and grab tools to make it easier to retrieve collectibles from weeds and near edges of the water. She says her group wasn’t scared to get their feet wet and that they were able to clean up a lot of litter.
“It’s kind of astounding, really, when you think about these locations,” Lilly said. “You look over off the highway and it doesn’t look like there is a lot of trash, but down in there there’s quite a bit.”
She said students should be aware of their environmental footprint, which could have a drastic effect or a positive one.
Lilly also said the Environmental Club is looking for new members, including a new president and vice president. Lilly and her vice president, Tatiana Muniz, will be graduating in Fall 2018.
For more information on the club, you can attend their monthly meeting from 6-6:30 p.m. in the Central Academic Building, Suite 419 on Tuesday, Feb. 27.
Participants should wear an old pair of sneakers or rain boots and bring a reusable bottle of water. Those interested in volunteering can sign up at http://basurabash.org/
