GREENFIELD — Many hands came together to make light work of cleaning up the Connecticut River Watershed over the weekend, ensuring that discarded litter and debris stays out of the region’s bodies of water.

The Greenfield-based Connecticut River Conservancy hosted its 27th annual Source to Sea Cleanup, with 128 separate groups lending a hand to pick up trash. Simultaneously, the Green River Cleanup celebrated its 20th year of hosting an annual day of action, with a crew of nearly 200 people participating. These efforts, coupled with similar cleanups in Gill and Montague, are collectively called the Franklin County Rivers Cleanup.

“This event has so many volunteers; it is making such a big impact on this region,” said Stacey Lennard, the Connecticut River Conservancy’s events manager and the Source to Sea Cleanup coordinator. “The Green River Cleanup is one of our signature events because it’s here in our hometown.”

The Greenfield event took a significant hit during the pandemic, having seen a large turnout prior to 2020. Lennard said the event has been slowly rebuilding community excitement over the past few years. This year saw an outpouring of volunteers, she noted, despite the threat of rain.

Three local politicians rolled up their sleeves to kick off the cleanup efforts on Friday, removing debris from a homeless encampment near Green River Park so the junk doesn’t end up in the river.

Greenfield Mayor Roxann Wedegartner, state Sen. Jo Comerford and state Rep. Natalie Blais joined a few other volunteers, including Green River Cleanup organizer David Boles, to clear trash from a wooded area for about an hour as an unofficial start to the annual event.

“It’s amazing what an hour can do,” said Comerford, a Democrat from Northampton. “Rep. Blais and I wanted to participate in the Connecticut River Conservancy’s river cleanup. Each of us does every year, in different sites. And so we thought we’d partner today with CRC and great volunteers.”

The local politicians and Boles were joined by Blais’ legislative aide Corinne Coryat, Comerford’s District Director Elena Cohen and Greenfield residents Michael Pattavina, Pat McGreevy and Rene Franzen. The volunteers removed discarded bottles, cans, blankets, tarps and other items from the area.

The bottles and other recyclables are all sorted and cleaned by volunteers at the event to be recycled.

“It was hard work,” Blais said with a laugh, gesturing to the pile of stuff accumulated along the woodline, “and we have a lot to show for it.”

Pattavina estimated the junk — including chairs, a grill, a basketball and a drink cooler — weighed a combined 1½ tons.

“It’s such an inspiring event and shows how much our community cares about cleaning up our rivers,” Blais said, before commending Boles for starting the Green River Cleanup 20 years ago. “He’s a local hero. What’s he’s doing is incredible. And it’s a real community-building event. I mean, you can see the results of your work. You can see that you’ve actually made a difference in cleaning up a river. And that is incredibly rewarding for the community.”

Lennard explained that every piece of trash on hillsides can fall into small streams, which feed into larger rivers, and eventually the ocean.

“If we can pick up stuff before it gets to any of those places,” Lennard said, “that is trash saved from getting into a water body and affecting wildlife and habitats.”

She noted that with the summer’s heavy rains having washed away debris on land, the rivers are experiencing more accumulated trash.

With each of the cleanups throughout the watershed, groups make records of what they find and report back to the Connecticut River Conservancy. The nonprofit has created a database of the collected trash for more than two decades and uses this data to advocate for state legislation that could help curb littering. One of the Massachusetts bills supported by the Connecticut River Conservancy includes an expanded bottle bill that would add deposits on a wider assortment of bottles, including small alcohol bottles called nips and plastic water bottles, in an attempt to encourage people to bring them to bottle redemption centers.

One of the larger items found every year at the river cleanups is discarded tires. Connecticut recently adopted a law of extended producer responsibility on tires that requires tire manufacturers to be responsible for the item’s disposal. This is an effort to stop the unlawful disposal and dumping of tires.

“We are hoping the Connecticut bill will pave the way for other states,” Lennard said.

Boles previously said the Green River consists of high-quality water when it comes into north Greenfield, but that water becomes heavily polluted by the time it discharges into the Deerfield River. He started the Green River Cleanup 20 years ago to combat this problem.

“We are the Green River, you know?” he told the group of volunteers on Friday as they were preparing to leave. “We’re drinking it.”

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120. Reach Bella Levavi at 413-930-4579 or blevavi@recorder.com.