The French River Connection, while active, performed one or more cleanups each year. Some French River towns hold Earth Day events which allowed us to easily dispose of river trash. These events were often somewhat limited by spring water levels, so we attacked common dumping areas. In August we frequently conducted a more extensive cleanup at low water levels in less accessible areas where trash had been accumulating for decades, removing everything from water bottles to automobile axles to refrigerators to the ubiquitous take-out coffee cups. We found that after an initial industrial-strength cleanup, keeping an area clean required about ten percent of the effort annually. In fourteen years, we removed tons of trash and hundreds of tires from about five miles of riverbank, and cleaned several miles of roadside near the river.