Adidas Pitches In
In August, a group of eight volunteer from adidas helped pick up trash along the Elochoman River
On an unseasonably cool summer Thursday, a group of eight Adidas employees took a break from the office to help Columbia Land Trust clean up trash along the Elochoman River in Wahkiakum County, WA. When it was all said and done, the group learned a bit about the Land Trust’s restoration work along the river and hauled out a trailer full of trash.
Two years ago, the Land Trust and the Adidas teamed up to clean trash from Pierce Island in the Columbia River near Beacon Rock State Park. The day of service helped offer Adidas employees a hands-on way to contribute to the company’s sustainability efforts, which included a collaboration with Parley for the Oceans, through which the apparel brand sold 1 million pairs of shoes made from recycled ocean plastic in 2017.
We teamed up again in August, this time heading west to Wahkiakum County’s Elochoman River, an important river for salmon and the site of a recent river restoration project. Members of the volunteer crew were eager to trade their computer monitors for the soothing sights and sounds of the river. We were pleased to find the river in overall good condition but still managed to find rusty metal, tires, cans, bottles, and other camp trash. In the end, we dropped off 420 pounds of garbage for recycling. Thank you to our friends at Adidas for pitching in for our local rivers.
For the Land Trust, work to restore and care for the Elochoman River continues downstream. We’re currently working with construction crews to remove a berm and reconnect some recently conserved lands to the river’s historic floodplain.