Better Habits for Better Lakes

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Educated Today for Tomorrow
Litter in our water affects everyone
Find out what you can do
Their Future Depends on Us
Clean water for future generations.
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Collecting trash before it enters streams
Clean, healthy water is important year-round.
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Controlling Trash
When trash enters streams it ends up in our environment. © Jason Swartz 2022
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Clean Water
Animals, insects, Birds, Fish we all require clean drinking water to survive
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Change Your Habits
Recycling and composting help keep our water clean
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Erie Litter Critters

Erie has a variety of “litter critters” – equipment that helps us, as a community, collect unwanted trash in our creeks, bays, and lakes.  Taking this trash out of our waterways, and learning how to keep trash from ENTERING the waterways will keep our water healthy for everyone.  See the “biographies” below to learn more about how these “critters” help each of us every day!

Our Critters

Litter Boom

Sea Bin

Storm Strainers

Street Sweeper

These critters are an important part of keeping our water clean, but we can all help lessen their workload (less work for volunteers too!) by learning how to keep litter from getting in the water in the first place.  Check out our “What Can I Do?” tab for more ideas about how you can keep our water clean too!

Year to Date Data

0
Plastic Bottles
0
Cigarette butts
0
Cups/Plates/Straws
0
Wrappers
0
Plastic Pieces

Click here for more data

What you can do?
Keep litter out of our water
Volunteer today
What you can do?
Education is the key to preventing waste from entering our waterways
Volunteer today
What can You do?
Make it a habit to reduce, reuse and recycle
Learn How

The Litter Critter Keepers

Kristen Currier

Erie County Conservation District Environmental Educator

Kristen provides outreach at public events and programs. She provides information to the community on why clean water is important and how to keep our water clean for everyone.

Sherri Mason

Director of Sustainability
Penn State Behrend

Sherri is obsessed with waste. As a research scientist, she channels her interest in getting data that she hopes can raise awareness and create change. She works with students to collect and categorize the litter from the "critters" reported here.

Amber Stilwell

Penn State Extension, Coastal Outreach Specialist, PA SeaGrant

Amber provides outreach at public events and programs. She provides information to the community on why clean water is important and how to keep our water clean for everyone. Amber also works with volunteers in cleanup efforts in Erie County.

Varun Kasaraneni

Gannon University - Assistant Professor of Environmental  Engineering

Varun is working on collecting numbers of how many large and small pieces of plastics are found in our streams and lake. He is also testing which ways work best in preventing and removing these plastics from our waterways.