Karen Buck picked up trash and started a movement.

Series Number 1.2
Length: 6 mins
Languages: Subtitles available in English and Spanish. Press the CC button in the video player.

The narrow Malden River, just north of Boston, was a major conduit for industry for hundreds of years. So much of the river had been buried in pipes beneath the city that many residents didn’t even know that it existed.

Today, even though the polluting businesses have been cleaned up, the river still receives much of the trash that is washed down catch basins in the streets of three neighboring cities. Trash in the Malden collects along the banks and is carried into the Mystic River, Boston Harbor, and out into the ocean.

This just wasn’t acceptable to Karen Buck, a local resident. Often working alone or with her children, Karen began removing the trash. She cleaned on foot and from boats. Out on the river, she discovered the city had installed a trash boom — a floating barrier — to stop the trash, but it had long been abandoned. Karen added the arduous task of cleaning the boom to her list and started building a coalition to clean the river.

Now, years later, Karen takes hundreds of volunteers out onto the river and the community has begun to adopt the Malden River as their own.

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