93. ‘Fish for Garbage’ and Taking Care of Waterways through Organized Trash Cleanups and Education (with President, Jared Winkler)

'Fish for Garbage' is a nonprofit that was organized by a bunch of outdoor enthusiasts who noticed significant amounts of trash littering stream banks and lakeshores of popular fishing locations in Utah. They started by encouraging local anglers to collect garbage each time they went out fishing, and then began organizing official events inviting volunteers and locals to come help pick up trash.

Now they organize around six cleanups every year in the spring and summer that mobilize hundreds of volunteers all over the state. They recently reached the impressive milestone of removing over 100,000 pounds of garbage since their first beginnings in 2015.

My guest on this episode is Jared Winkler, the President of 'Fish for Garbage'. He tells a little more about the work they do with educating kids and others about taking stewardship for the outdoors, and at the very end I had him share some of the most ‘interesting’ things they’ve found in all the cleanups he’s been a part of.

With the weather warming up and all of us spending more time outside, this is a great episode to remind everyone that picking up a little trash truly can make a difference. Give it a listen and you might even feel inspired to host your own local cleanup.

Links mentioned in the episode:

Fish for Garbage Website

Fish for Garbage Instagram

Fish for Garbage Facebook

Follow the podcast on social media:

Do Something More Instagram

Do Something More Facebook

Do Something More YouTube

Transcript

Melissa: I think a lot of us have probably had experience picking up trash in public areas, either on our own or as an organized service project with our church group or youth group or even our family. And this nonprofit that I'm featuring this week, they organize huge cleanups like this all over the state of Utah. They're a group of outdoor enthusiasts that truly want to make a difference, and not only with that, but also do education to kids and other youth about having stewardship for the great outdoors. So it's a great episode. I thought this was perfect to play for the spring and summer months coming up when we're all spending a little more time outside. Listen to be inspired by the good work they do. And you might also be inspired to go pick up some garbage at a local outdoor area near you or even organize a cleanup with some neighbors and friends. So here it is, the president of Fish for Garbage, Jared Winkler. Welcome to the Do Something More podcast. The show all about service, where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. If you're passionate about nonprofits or looking for simple ways to volunteer and give back to the causes that matter to you, this is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Melissa Draper. Stick around and I'll show you all the many ways anyone can truly make a difference in our world today. Welcome to this episode of the podcast. And it's springtime now. We're all getting and spending more time outside. So I was really impressed with the initiative of this nonprofit I'm going to feature today, Fish for Garbage. They are located here in Utah, but I think the good that they do can really be applicable for wherever you live. So my guest on the podcast today is Jared Winkler. He's the president of Fish for Garbage. And basically what they do is they host waterway cleanups in the state of Utah and they also have education programs with the goal of helping others appreciate and take more responsibilities for protecting waterways. So I want want to welcome to the podcast. Jared Winkler, welcome.

Jared: Hi. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to chatting with you today and hopefully inspiring a few people to get out there and pick up some trash.

Melissa: Absolutely. Why don't we start off with you just introducing yourself and then we can get into how Fish for Garbage got started.

Jared: Yeah. So I grew up here in Salt Lake City, Utah. I worked for Brighton Ski Resort. Worked there full time year round at my title actually for Brighton Ski Resort, is the director of marketing and very avid outdoorsman, skier, snowboarder, fly fisherman, hunter, and just camper. Just love being outdoors and that kind of what connected me with, you know, Fish for Garbage.

Melissa: That's great. So how did that program all get started? What was kind of the beginnings of it? I know on your website it says it was started by a group of anglers and outdoors enthusiasts. What were kind of the beginnings of.

Jared: That, how it started was there was a couple guys who were fishing buddies, a guy named Brad Greeno and his buddy Matt Maxwell. And they just kind of didn't like the idea of how much trash they were seeing when they went out fishing, just on the rivers, on the riverbanks, and maybe on lakeshores. And. And I think they had a close connection with a local scout troop and a good connection in the local fly fishing community. And so they just had the idea of we should do a. To do a cleanup. And they got together with, you know, a couple scout troops, handful of fishing buddies, and put on the first cleanup in 2015. And I, I wasn't an organizer of that cleanup, but I went as a participant and was just really amazed with the good that they did and how cool it was. And, you know, it was a few dozen people together just making an impact, just simply on their own with some bags and picking up trash. And so how I got more involved with Fish for Garbage was I had a pretty large social media following at the time with the organization that I started, and I felt like I could help out with my marketing background and get more people to come to the next cleanup, you know, so. So we ended up volunteering and just helping out, and 10 years later, still here. Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah, I love that. And that was the first thing I noticed when I saw your social media pages and, and things how easy it is. I think a lot of people do have the desire to go help with something like that, but don't always have the initiative to get it going or know what to do. And so I love seeing that you made it so easy for someone to just show up and come participate.

Jared: Yeah, we really try to make it very inviting for everyone. All abilities, all ages, kids, adults, it doesn't matter. We're happy to have anyone and we'll find, find a little project for everybody who shows up. The great thing was, is with our social media, we had, you know, I had a good reach and then a few other social media influencers, let's just say, had a good reach. And so we got together and we're able to get more and more people. So over the years, our social media reach isn't huge just for Fish for Garbage, but for all the volunteers we have and the people talking about us and helping us get the word out to join us for and to clean up or to even just clean up on your own is pretty big.

Melissa: So yeah, I saw that you've had over 3,000 volunteers show up at all of the events and things that you've hosted.

Jared: Yeah, so this, you know, we started in 2015 and this being our, you know, 2025 going into our 10th year, we had some pretty cool milestones. Last year, our one we're most proud of was breaking a hundred thousand pounds collected and through our cleanups. And it's pretty crazy because when you think of how much say a flip flop or a plastic water bottle weighs and you throw those in a bag, like the mass is what's really impressive because those are filling up full size construction dumpsters that actually put some poundage in. And so it's, it's been pretty impressive at all our cleanups, the stuff we can find and the stuff that gets brought in. But what it accumulated to is that a hundred thousand pound number was really impressive.

Melissa: Yeah, that's crazy. What is the biggest cleanup that you've had, either in size of what you've been able to clean up, or also volunteers that showed up.

Jared: Our flagship cleanup is the Provo river cleanup and that's Provo Canyon. Like anyone who's kind of, you know, all the way from Utah county to Ogden has probably had the opportunity to visit Provo Canyon at least once. You know, maybe hike Bridal Falls or just been up to Sundance. And so that one is a beautiful canyon. It's kind of our, our, that's where we started. Our first cleanup was on the lower Provo river there. And we do one every year there, so. And crazy enough, there's still plenty of trash, you know. So last year being our ninth year, was our biggest year in the Provo Canyon. And we filled, I think it was £14,000 in that day as three full construction sized dumpsters. And then we had over 400 volunteers show up. And so that's our biggest. I mean those are some amazing numbers to us. And the organization out of those for that cleanup and other things takes, you know, not just me and a couple guys. Like we have a planning committee of about 20 people who all work together on finding other volunteers, handling logistics, getting other partners, you know, looking for other sponsors, just getting it all together to make sure that when we put on event for 400 people, they have a good time. Everyone feels like that their volunteer time is needed and, and used wisely because, you know, Saturday morning in April, May, June, everybody has a lot of things going on and just going to pick up track that somebody else left isn't on the top of their list. And so we really want to make sure that they feel like they're doing some good and that people notice and that they can be rewarded for doing it.

Melissa: Absolutely. As I was thinking when you shared that, I think what's unique about the service you're doing is it has to feel good to organize and to see all that garbage taken care of. But on the flip side, it has to feel a little frustrating too sometimes too. Do you ever battle those emotions as well?

Jared: I guess it could feel frustrating because sometimes when you go to a place and you're like, it looks amazing. And then you go back next time and you're like, you notice say somebody who left all their lunch wrappers or cans or something on that same beach, you're like, what, what, what are people thinking?

Melissa: But yeah, why?

Jared: Our message is not to shame people or make them, you know, try to call anybody out for being slobs. It's just let's, let's try to inspire people to be better stewards to the environment and pick up after others. Leave a place looking better than you found it and hopefully inspire others to kind of live with the same type of attitude.

Melissa: That's a great perspective and that goes great into the second mission of your non profit, to do the education side as well so that people, and especially youth feel that responsibility. And the mother side of me loves that you do that part of your non profit as the times I've spent trying to educate my own kids to clean up after themselves no matter where they're at.

Jared: So yeah, we work, we love to honestly work with kids and talk to them about kind of the effects of really clean water, why you need clean water, what, what makes a difference and then, you know, to environmental impact that they can have just themselves on. On a positive or a negative way. The kid component kind of came when. So my first child was born in 2015 when we had our, our thing start and as she was getting older, we're taking her to these cleanups and yeah, she's playing on the playground, running around. And then I have my second kid and these kids are running around going to our cleanups and it's just kind of like, wow, we. This isn't just for me, it's for the future and seeing them learn from such a young age, learning how to walk and stumbling around on the beaches and stuff Picking up, you know, gum wrappers and things with a trash grabber. It made me realize, like, hey, if working with these kids at a younger age and letting them understand, like, just, it's kind of fun to pick up trash, they. They now love the idea of getting out of the car when we're going fishing, and then they immediately say, oh, we're going fishing for garbage. And they grab, like, our plastic bag that we bought our groceries in at the Maverick and start filling trash in it or whatever. And. And I have to constantly stop them to be like, hey, you guys, we're. Let's go fish first, and then we can pick up trash later. Let's go do our hike first, and then we'll pick up trash on our way back. And. And so it really is very. It's a pretty big important thing to us to work with kids and get them understanding that, you know, we can make a difference. And so we try to do the best we can.

Melissa: Right. I agree. When you start young, it just kind of becomes, this is just what we do. This is something we do. And I think that's great.

Jared: I think my kids are more. They'll pick up some. Somebody else's trash, no problem. But when you go to grab a spider or smash a bug, they're just like every other kid. I'm scared of it. So.

Melissa: Yeah. Or I have teenagers, they'll go help sometimes with other things, but it's not always the same here at home. But that's good. We're all learning and growing. So what do you do with those education programs? Are you going into schools? Are you. Are they coming to you? What. What are. How do those work?

Jared: We created them first. The easiest thing we did was created just a simple little activity book for kids to. We'd pass out. Like, say we go to the Hogle Zoo events and pass out these activity books and just let kids kind of get their first insight about what's happening with just kind of the environment, like kind of understanding what is trash, what's not trash, what's natural, what's not natural, and then kind of go from there. And then as we branch into some older kids, we do have a couple educators who are on our committee who we work with their schools and kind of just try to plan out cleanups with them and just kind of go on just casual conversations about what. What's going on, how they can make a difference and their impact, what it does for everybody else.

Melissa: Yeah, that's great. I have a few little fishermen in my own home, especially my 13 year old, he loves fishing in the summer especially. And I love that idea of just saying, hey, each time you go out, take a few minutes at the end, look around you, do some cleanup, make sure you're cleaning up after yourself. And that alone can make a huge difference.

Jared: Yeah, I think it's good to be a good example for, especially in a teenage age, to be. Be a positive example for your friends and be that person who's like, if you see somebody throw something on the ground, like, have enough confidence to be like, hey, that's not cool. That's. Let's pick that up. Or even go this next step further and be the one in your group to bend over and just pick something up when you're walking through. And when all those other kids are kind of like, what are you doing? Why are you grabbing that? You can just be like, because it's garbage, and I could throw it away real easy. It kind of shows a lot of character, and hopefully that's something that we can help just slowly build into, you know, the. The future's mindset of. It's not a big deal. It's just to do it and works out great.

Melissa: Yeah, without question. Well, we love to hear personal stories here on the podcast, so I'm just wondering if you have any of your own or people that have shown up at your cleanups or that you've worked with that have personally shared the impact of what you're doing has had on them.

Jared: You know, I think there's. There's probably multiple stories because over the past, you know, 10 years, we have seen volunteers just like myself grow with the organization. So, you know, me and my buddies going as just our own outdoor enthusiasts to now, suddenly we have kids. And since our kids are having fun together, it's become a nice social way, you know, to get together. Once a month, we go pick up track together, our kids play together, and it's like, wow. We've developed some strong bonds between other outdoor enthusiasts, like fishermen or kayakers, and. And just truly making friends. So it's. It's pretty neat. You know, everybody will have a funny story about something they found out there from, you know, working hard together as a team, rolling a heavy tire from a river bottom up to the side of the road again to then try to throw it into a dumpster, or funny laughs of people who lost a shoe by stepping in the dumpster or something, and it stayed in the dumpster and so we had to dig out their shoe or just kind of some of that fun Stuff is kind of keeps us going and. And it's just a good time together. And so even though our organization, I should have said earlier, is 100 ran by volunteers, like, none of us take an income from it. Anything we make from the organization goes back into the organization. And so it is something that nobody has to do. Nobody's getting paid to do it. We all want to do it, and we enjoy doing it. And. And everybody who's been on our board pretty much has been doing it since the inception. And so it's. It's a lot of fun. We just continue to do it. And. And I think that's what it is. It's just building positive memories for ourselves, making ourselves feel good about doing something for the environment, for other people and then just being good examples.

Melissa: Right. And, yeah, that serving together really does build special bonds right there. And something else I noticed about your board as I was reading over the different bios that you. You all have that passion for the outdoors, but they. You have people that have grown up from all over and gain that passion in different places all over the U.S. i thought that was really unique.

Jared: Yeah, I think, I mean, gosh, Utah's a. A destination hub. And once people come for, if it's school, if it's for skiing or snowboarding, if it's for, you know, any other outdoor activity out here, they. They tend to find like, wow, what a. What a great hub. Like, the airport's there. You can go anywhere. And from that airport real quickly, and then just Salt Lake City itself, you know, five hours north, you're in Yellowstone. Five hours south, you're in, you know, Zion. So it's just like some of those things just like, wow. And so I think when you make it to Utah, you really enjoy it. And so that's kind of one of our things. As majority of us living here, we. We want to, you know, kind of keep the place where we like to recreate clean.

Melissa: Yeah, that is something unique about where we live, really. Any 10 to 20 minutes away, you can find yourselves in the mountains, up a canyon, on the shore of a lake. And that. That really does, I think, breed that love of the outdoors for many of us that live here. But along with that, we do have a lot of listeners from all over. So is there any general advice that you would give for someone that's listening and saying, hey, we need something like this where we live, or even just how to organize a cleanup in their community? What. What other general advice would you give?

Jared: I. I think it's a Great idea. I mean there's a lot of really nice organizations in most every state. Like things like Trout Unlimited or American Fly Fishermen or like Ducks Unlimited. Those places all actually rally people together and if sometimes just maybe look into them, get involved with some of those other nonprofits, those larger ones, or if you are just like a school teacher or a scout troop leader or something, it's like, why not let's go pick up some trash and. And really all it starts with is an idea. Getting some people together, finding a, a place that needs a little extra love, and buying a box of garbage bags and go do it. And if you want to go further on, you can make lunch afterwards or go pick up trash and then go fishing for the second half of the day. Whatever it is, it's not hard. And even if it's just yourself like walking around filling up, you know, I always say everybody seems to stop at the garbage at the gas station or something on their before going up to recreate or go buy a Subway sandwich. They have those little bags and even if you just take those little plastic bags and roll them up, stuff em in your pocket and then when you're walking back just pick up a few things and throw it in them and then throw it away, it'll make a little bit of an impact. But that everybody making a little impact can be a pretty big impact in.

Melissa: The end, of course. Yep. Yeah, that's one of the tips I've given before. If you're traveling and want to serve, visiting a place and want to serve is picking up garbage is something you can do easy and quick with your family. Just take some garbage bags. Whether you're camping, visiting a national park, a city really doesn't take that much time and can make a difference.

Jared: No, it doesn't. I mean the sad thing is, is when you fill up a bag and you still see a bunch of trash still around, you're like, wow, this filled up quick. And I didn't, I don't have enough room to take anything else. But even if it is just one thing at a time, it's, it's all good. But if anyone out of state wants to contact us and figure out any way to that we could get involved, we'd be happy to try to point them in the right direction of any local organizations that are in their areas.

Melissa: As well, that'd be great. How for. So for those that are closer or want to get involved, how can they do that with your organization?

Jared: I think the first thing they could probably do is, I mean Just take the time to check out our website, kind of see a little bit more look at our blog and see the impact, kind of see what our events are like because they're pretty documented with videos and photos and you kind of get an idea of what's happening and if that's something that really looks exciting to them or like they'd want to get involved, they could sign up for our newsletter or follow us on social media. It's all pretty simple. Fish for garbage on social media and then by the newsletter, fish for me or sorry social media. We would hopefully be able to like let them know here's a cleanup coming up. We'd love to get you involved and, and then if they don't make it, no big deal. They might get a follow up newsletter, email or social media post talking about what they missed out on and then they can join us for the next one.

Melissa: Yeah, so many. Especially during the, the spring and summer months. Well Jared, as we close up here and I'll leave links to all of those in our show notes so people can find you. But as we close the podcast here, I would just love to hear any final thoughts from you or even have you share the biggest why for all of this that you do and why you participate in it.

Jared: I guess for closing thought we can all just be good examples for, you know, everyone around us and try to leave a place better than we found it and, and all of us can hope that you show up and you're in a nice clean place before having to do anything and then you can just go and enjoy your day and go home, not worry about it because you don't really, you only notice it when it's there. You don't, you don't notice as bad when it's looks like what it should look like, you know, nice and clean. Just nature I guess you would say. But. But no, I think if I could inspire anybody to just give it a shot, come volunteer. They actually would feel like we're very welcoming group of people who like to, yeah, pick up trash, like to have a good time, go fishing, you know, spend. We, we do have some overnight camping trips that we do together where we'll go to like Strawberry Reservoir and pick up trash all morning and then stay fishing all day and then spend the night in a camping trip and a lot of stories get shared over a bonfire or fire pit and it's pretty fun that way. So it's been a great way for us to make friends and hopefully some other people if they want to come make friends. Come on out.

Melissa: That's great. I did think of one final question though. What is the weirdest thing you've ever found or have you found a treasure while you've been picking all this stuff up?

Jared: So we have two of those. We've actually had a lot of really sketchy things, you know, like hypodermic needles and other things. You're like, oh, don't mess with that. Like, that's gross. When, when we go to some other destinations where there's no restrooms, like portable restrooms, things like that, we tend to find a lot of human personal hygiene remains. I don't know.

Melissa: Oh dear. And make sure you got the gloves on, right?

Jared: Yeah. So we always at our cleanups, give people gloves, trash grabbers, those little pinchers and gloves and try to keep it as sterile as we can with the hand sanitizer and hand washing stations and stuff like that. But. Right, but yeah, anything you can imagine gets found and kind of thrown away. It's kind of a running joke. What we're gonna find at each cleanup, what, what it's going to be like. We did find a safe once and so somebody wanted to take that home and try to crack it. I never heard. We just let the guy take it. There's been definitely stuff that like we had a bike brought in last year when we were like. And in the middle of why would there be a bike in the river? And simple enough, like getting a guy was real excited, tuned it up and got it running again and then just gave it away to some kid and the kid was stoked. And then yeah, like shopping carts, like all kinds of random stuff. But. But the rivers that have. Tend to have the most trash are the rivers that have more frequent recreating. Like tubing, like river tubing or river rafting. Not just fishermen because, you know, like Lower Provo Canyon, it's next to a freeway so people can just throw stuff out of their trucks or wherever that can just make its way down to the river or people who are floating on it. Like it's really easy to lose a flip flop when you go through rapids and then it just floats away and doesn't disappear. We end up having to pick that stuff up. So just those higher recreated and rivers next to like roads are the ones that get it the most. And so.

Melissa: But it sounds like sometimes you wade out into the river to, to find stuff.

Jared: You don't have to get out to the middle, but you may wait out to cross the river to get trash from the other side. Because usually it's lodged down the bank on the side or something or in some logs that are crossing it, you can find some stuff. So speaking of fun stuff, we found, we've often had, like, partners, like artists who will be like, oh, I'm going to go hide this sculpture on the river, and one of your volunteers will find it. You know, they get to keep the sculpture. Or we had. It's very popular, those people who do, like, treasure hunts, they've hidden, like, treasures for. For our volunteers to find, like, one guy hid like, some little silver bars, and another person hid, like, a little, little gold bar that was in, like, a co. Little credit card. Wow. Yeah. So it made it also a treasure hunt when they're out there picking up trash that they might be able to find a treasure. And so sometimes we have volunteers who will. Will donate stuff like that and make. Make kind of the cleanup a little bit more fun. And so, uh, we do host six cleanups a summer, usually like one a month. And all the way from, like, northern Utah to Provo, like the Provo Canyon. And so there's always opportunities for people to get involved.

Melissa: Now, thanks for appeasing my curiosity, and I'm sure others that are listening, I'm sure would want to hear, with all the cleanup that you're doing, I knew that there would be some interesting things in there.

Jared: So somebody will join us this summer and they'll be like, hey, I heard about you on the Do Good podcast. And I go from there.

Melissa: Absolutely. I want to bring my kids out with me. I think it'd be a great experience for them. So thanks so much, Jared. It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast here today.

Jared: No problem. Glad to be here.

Melissa: That concludes my interview with Jared Winkler, the president of Fish for Garbage. And after listening to that interview, I am inspired to take my kids and go do a cleanup somewhere. And I really loved how I emphasized every little bit matters and helps. And they really do feel like they're making a difference with the good work that they do. And I love that they organize these events because really doing service with other people can be inspiring, can help you form those good relationships. There's just a lot of good that goes around. So I love that their organization is encouraging everyone to be good stewards, to clean up around them, but then also brings people together to feel the effect of that and work on it together. As he mentioned, their first big cleanup, they do around six of them each spring and summer. Their first big one. If you live here in Utah, is coming up on April 26th and it's on the Provo River. So I will leave links to their social media and their website so you can get more information on that if you're interested in joining that cleanup or any of the others that they host over the next few months. And of course I would like to encourage you and give the friendly reminder that if you enjoyed this podcast episode, please share it with a friend. Or if you've listened to the podcast and it's been a benefit to you, you've felt some good inspiration, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts that especially is helpful. Give a good 5 star rating or subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen. Or you can also follow the podcast on social media. And again I leave links to all of those in the show notes. And as always this week, I hope that you can find a way to do something more to help lift, inspire or make a difference.