Omaha/Council Bluffs Missouri River Cleanup 2025

Group of volunteers posing with their trash haul! Photo by Petie Holder.

Birds? Planes? We got plenty of both at our camp headquarters out of Narrows River Park! This park sits just a few miles upstream from the Saturday cleanup site out of Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park. Wednesday afternoon, the caravan crew arrived to the Narrows to set up camp. Thursday we splashed our boats in the water in preparation for our upcoming cleanup and squeezed in an evening sunset boat ride for our Volunteer Crew. The river is no stranger to wildlife! An array of birds, bats, and even a beaver greeted us during the evening river float. Thank you so much to Pottawattamie County Parks for allowing us to camp here.

Group of volunteers posing with their trash haul! Photo by Petie Holder.

Friday morning was our trash scout, where the MRR Crew set out on boats to search the banks of the Missouri River for trash, then mark each of those sites. These pre-scouted sites are then marked on maps for the dispatch team to use to determine where to send operators with their groups during the Saturday cleanup. The predicted winds for the afternoon were intense, so we made sure to set out almost an hour earlier to beat them... and rightfully so! The winds were forming white caps on the river, which made for a bumpy trash site search. We hunkered down for the rest of the evening, taking on what we think were up to 60 mph gusts right into our camp!

We had our friends from Together Omaha join us for the scout and provide guidance during our scout for trash sites. Together Omaha works directly with individuals experiencing homelessness. Their boots-on-the-ground effort as an aid to raise people out of homelessness is awe inspiring. Thank you to the street outreach coordinators who joined us on our scout and shared your stories and expertise!

Crew heading out via boat to start the trash scout. A plane flies overhead. Photo by Alyssa Thomas.

Saturday was the big cleanup day! 98 general volunteers showed up to Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park to head out to trash sites on the banks of the Missouri River. To help make this effort possible was 23 of our volunteer crew who worked registration, presented the orientation and safety briefing, and executed the river operations! After a couple hours at their sites, volunteers returned to Tom Hanafan for a well-deserved lunch provided by Hy-Vee!

Group of volunteers posing with their trash haul! Photo by Petie Holder.

We had activities set up for volunteers to enjoy. Many kiddos took the challenge to earn their Missouri River Explorer Badge, where they recite their oath to be river protectors. Volunteers were also tasked to return to the park with trash treasures to submit to our Trash Contest. Once all volunteers arrived back to the park, we worked through our trash contest categories and the crowd voted by cheering. We were also accompanied by Keep Omaha Beautiful, who was a great resource for what more people could do in their communities!

Trash Contest! A crowd stands in front of the contest hosts to cheer for their prizes. Photo by Alyssa Thomas.

Trash haul time! The MRR Crew set back out on the river to collect all the trash that waited at each site. All this trash was hauled back up to our dumpster at Narrows River Park, where the Brand Audit volunteers with our partners from Missouri River Bird Observatory siphoned through trash bags to collect data that in turn would be used to identify the world’s top polluting corporations. Click here to learn more about Brand Audits and how to be a part of this international effort!

Crew pose with a boat load of trash, waiting for the boat to be pulled out on its trailer to offload trash.
Photo by Alyssa Thomas.

Saturday evening, we celebrated our efforts with a wonderful meal donated by Ono Pinay Kitchen. Platters of Hawaiian and Filipino cuisine were scarfed down by our hardworking crew! Thank you to Ono Pinay Kitchen for this amazing meal.

If you’ve made it through this summary of our wonderful time in Omaha/Council Bluffs, you’ll realize that there are a lot of hands to execute this effort. In all, 120 volunteers had a hand in removing 2.71 tons of trash. A big thank you goes out to Back to the River, who without their support, this all wouldn’t be possible!  We are thankful for the work we are able to accomplish in this reach of river, and the experience we get to share with the community on this amazing resource.

Check out our trash tally from the cleanup below!