Lessons from ‘Trash Fish’

How a Cleveland fisherman with a colorful nickname salvages plastic from the Cuyahoga River and turns it into public art.

‘Trash Fish’ with his Lake Erie plastic monster. (Courtesy of The Land.)

Dear Friends of Our Towns,

During this holiday season, we celebrate a charming tale from Cleveland, Ohio. It includes several of our passions: creative citizen engagement, local volunteer participation, the environment, and public art, all reported and written by a talented local journalist.

So-called “Trash Fish” is avid Cleveland fisherman Eddie Olschansky, who expanded trash-picking habits we associate with neighborhood sidewalks to the waterways of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River. His focus is plastics, from lost shoes to discarded water bottles to kids’ toys that went overboard or washed out to Lake Erie from beaches and drains. The collection inspired opportunity to bring in local artists to fashion a sculpture, based on old local folklore of sorts, of a resident Loch Ness Monster.

As an environmentalist, Trash Fish also saw the 15-foot floating monster as a chance to educate the public about the dangers of plastics. At the human level, the sculpture not only captured the hearts of children, but also the energy of hundreds of volunteers, who have signed on to help pick trash.

We note that with some creative thinking, this is a replicable model for other communities where citizen action meets public art, whether along riverwalks, or city sidewalks, or in public parks.

We also shout out to The Land, an online journal from Cleveland, which trains citizens to be local journalists. The story’s author, Collin Cunningham, a journalism graduate of Kent State, could also be a model and inspiration to other young writers on how to spot, research, and produce stories that are important and relevant on many levels to the people of their communities.

Read on for yourself!