Waste Management

New River Advocacy Group Works to Nip Pollution Problems

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A sampling of the nips collected during an April 24 riverside cleanup in South Kingstown, R.I. (Courtesy photos)

Bill McCusker doesn’t know how many he and the other 60 or so people picked up during the three-hour cleanup, but it was a lot.

“They were everywhere,” he said. “They were the main offender. Everyone was talking about nips.”

A bill was introduced during the current General Assembly session to require a deposit, not less than 50 cents, on all nips sold in Rhode Island. There are also two bottle bills (H5280 and S0106) that require deposits on all single-use beverage containers.

The April 24 cleanup — two days after the official observance of Earth Day’s 51st anniversary — was held by Friends of the Saugatucket and the Ministerial Road Preservation Association. The latter is an all-volunteer community group dedicated to preserving a scenic and historic road that dates back to the 17th century. The former is a new all-volunteer organization created to promote the well-being of the Saugatucket River.

McCusker and his wife, Elise Torello, are among the group of local environmentalists who thought it was time for the once-industrial river to have a guardian again.

Volunteer in kayak cleaning nips from river
Volunteers used kayaks to haul trash out of the Saugatucket River.

Friends of the Saugatucket was formed in February and picks up where the Saugatucket River Heritage Corridor Coalition left off 14 years ago. McCusker said the new group wants to build on the “great work” and the “neat stuff” the coalition accomplished from 2001-2007.

Sadly, part of the Friends’ work includes cleaning up after others. The group’s first Earth Day event picked up and hauled out 1,200 pounds of trash. The 32-person effort — the Ministerial Road Preservation Association team had another 30 or so volunteers — involved three people on kayaks on the Saugatucket River; a few others donned waders, and the rest fanned out along the river’s banks and tributaries and the sidewalks surrounding them.

“We basically covered all of downtown Wakefield,” McCusker said.

Volunteers clean up nips in Wakefield
Volunteers spent three hours cleaning up the village of Wakefield.

Their reward was mostly plastic nips, bottles, and wrappers. McCusker said 70 percent to 75 percent of the collected trash was alcohol related. He noted that more vodka and whiskey bottles are now made of plastic and that it’s cheaper to buy 10 nips than the smallest equivalent bottle.

Much of the rest of the trash collected was fast-food debris. There also was COVID masks and dog poop bags left filled for someone else to pick up.

“Plastics are the problem,” McCusker said. “We can deal with glass, paper, and wood — paper and wood rots — but plastics don’t go away.”

He offered a few suggestions on how to lessen the amount of trash blowing around our communities, such as better enforcement of littering laws and replacing old trash cans with receptacles that have secure lids. He said enforcement could start with making sure garbage trucks of all sizes have their loads covered.

Besides picking up plastic and other trash, the new group’s broader mission is to advocate for the river’s health. The Friends’ areas of focus are restoring the river for herring passage, water-quality monitoring, stormwater mitigation, and educational programs.

The Saugatucket River has its headwaters in North Kingstown. It then flows south through South Kingstown into Point Judith Pond and ultimately into Block Island Sound. Its 11,000-acre watershed is a mix of woodland and suburban and urban development. The river and its tributaries are obstructed by several dams.

While the Friends of the Saugatucket River work on becoming a registered nonprofit, the Charlestown-based Salt Ponds Coalition is the group’s fiscal sponsor.

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  1. I live on a main road in EG that is a short cut through to WG, WW and Coventry. The amount of nips I find is astounding. There are a fair amount of beer cans as well. The time has long come that RI needs to have a bottle deposit bill and to increase fines for littering and especially for illegal dumping. I am all for shaming the companies of what are the most littered such as Dunkin’ cups and Fireball nips. If these companies were as committed to the environment as they are to selling their products it probably wouldn’t be an issue. However when was the last time anyone saw a Dunkin or a Bud Light sponsored litter pick up? Why are volunteers picking up after corporate America?

  2. I live in urban Newport. Huge nips problem. I pick them out of my yard too — I live a block away from a liquor store.

  3. Nip bottles are going in the landfill in Johnston, the recycling head of that department told me. The nips fall thru the conveyor belts and therefore go in the ‘trash". I pick up hundreds of nips in Richmond/Exeter all year long. I am thinking of making a headdress out of nips for a town meeting or decorate a Xmas tree with Fireballs and getting people’s attention. Better yet I am thinking of renting a limo to pick up trash in my evening gown!

  4. Call House Speaker Shekarchi and tell him you expect this to be handled with corporate sponsors doing the collection and recycling!

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