Boxes for Bags on the Bayou

Boy Scout Eagle Project Provides Reusable Garbage Bags

Aug. 29, 2016

Updated

Houston Boy Scout Saswat Pati, a member of Sam Houston Area Council Troop 55, has built and installed wooden boxes to distribute reusable mesh bags for collecting trash on Buffalo Bayou and Spring Creek.

The project is part of a statewide project started by the Nueces River Authority called Up2U. Pati, a sophomore at St. John’s School in Houston, planned and executed the garbage bag project on Buffalo Bayou as part of his service requirement for obtaining the rank of Eagle Scout.

The wooden boxes have now been installed at four locations, including two on the 26-mile long Buffalo Bayou Paddling Trail established by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which is the official beneficiary of the service project. The two Buffalo Bayou locations are Briar Bend and Woodway.

Officials with Harris County Precinct 3 refused to allow Pati to install boxes at the four Paddling Trail boat launches in Terry Hershey Park. In fact, county maps of Terry Hershey Park do not show any boat launches in the park.

Terry Hershey Park, named for conservationist and bayou preservationist Terry Hershey, is in Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack’s Precinct 3.

However, in cooperation with the excellent Bayou Land Conservancy, Commissioner Jack Cagle did allow Pati’s garbage bag boxes to be installed at two locations on Spring Creek in Precinct 4. Those  two locations  are Pundt Park and the Jesse H. Jones Park and Nature Center. Precinct 4 also includes Buffalo Bayou as it flows past Memorial Park.

“With these Up2U bags, people will be able to clean up the river while they paddle,” Pati wrote in a letter to Save Buffalo Bayou, which contributed to the project. “Users will make their own impact on the river. By doing this, I hope to increase the awareness of the condition of Houston’s bayous and to equip all people to fix it.”

Installing a handbuilt wooden box for reusable mesh bags to collect trash on Buffalo Bayou. At the Woodway boat launch in Memorial Park, part of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Buffalo Bayou Paddling Trail.  From  to right: Boy Scouts Jonah Pesikoff and Saswat Pati, Assistant Scoutmaster Janice Walden, and Boy Scout Dad Debananda Pati.

Installing a handbuilt wooden box for reusable mesh bags to collect trash on Buffalo Bayou. At the Woodway boat launch in Memorial Park, part of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Buffalo Bayou Paddling Trail. From left to right: Boy Scouts Jonah Pesikoff and Saswat Pati, Assistant Scoutmaster Janice Walden, and Boy Scout Dad Debananda Pati.

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Boxes for Bags on the Bayou”

  1. Janice Walden says:

    Susan, thanks to all of you at Save Buffalo Bayou for supporting Saswat’s project!

  2. Alice McCarthy says:

    Good report and photos. Thanks!

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