Via Houstonist, the troubles with trash in Buffalo Bayou.

Pieces of plastic bags cling to tree branches, soda cans slosh against the banks and plastic water bottles move swiftly downstream. The garbage haunts the $15 million Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade that was completed last year.

While locals who walk, canoe or bike along the bayou often bemoan the trash, few realize it comes from their own backyards.

"People are under the misconception that the litter comes from people throwing it into the bayou," said Scott Barnes, conservation director of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership. "It comes out of our neighborhoods and our streets and flows through the storm drains directly into the waterway."

[...]

Barnes' organization and others have launched educational campaigns aimed at neighborhoods within the bayou's watershed, including Montrose, the Heights and Memorial. Several volunteers have made rounds at businesses in those areas, asking owners to free their parking lots of garbage so wrappers, cans and the like aren't swept into storm drains during rainstorms.

Not littering is the most obvious way to keep trash out of the bayou. Another easy way residents can help is by properly bagging trash to keep pieces from falling out of garbage cans or trucks, said Kevin Shanley, chairman of the board of the Bayou Preservation Association.

"If it rains hard, stuff will float off," he said. "Bag it, don't chuck it. It's that simple."

[...]

But the most effective method of cleanup is preventing trash from getting washed into the bayou to begin with, said Shanley, who designed the Sabine-to-Bagby project.

"It just is going to take education," he said. "People need to recognize how important it is."

I join with Houstonist in recommending the Buffalo Bayou Partnership and the Bayou Preservation Association to those who want to do more. But seriously: don't litter. Pick up the trash that you see on the street near your house. And just so we're all clear, don't litter. It's that simple.