While some students were lying on the beach this spring break, others were picking up trash in Tennessee.

Campus Recreation’s Outdoor Adventure led students on an alternative spring break trip to Memphis to be a part of a collaborative effort to remove more than 200,000 of garbage from lake and river fronts.

The trip was led by graduate assistant Chad Cadwell and sophomore sociology major Nathan Tripp, who was the team facilitator.

The group cleaned up portions of McKellar Lake, which feeds into the Mississippi River, just outside of Memphis. The group worked with Living Lands and Waters, a 501 (c)(3) environmental organization founded in 1998. It is almost entirely funded by corporations, Cadwell said.

“I could never have imagined picking up trash being so much freaking fun,” Cadwell said. “It’s just an awesome experience working with an organization like this. They’re just amazing and everybody that’s there loves to be there it’s like this tight-knit family.”

Living Lands and Waters organized the three-week cleanup effort that NIU participated in with other schools from Illinois, Maine and Utah. More than 100,000 pounds of trash was collected during the week NIU was there, and a total of more than 200,000 pounds will be removed over three weeks, Cadwell said.

“[Founder] Chad Pregracke and the whole Living Lands and Waters crew is such a dynamic crew, and just to meet them and learn what they do as well as getting to know the students that went with us was key,” Tripp said.

One of those students who attended was Ben Stone, sophomore environmental studies major. Stone has been concerned about the environment ever since a high school research project.

“They [albatrosses] will go into the giant trash mass and eat plastic pieces that, once they start digesting them, will tear up their insides and kill them,” Stone said.

Stone had never taken a trip like the one offered and decide it would be a great experience to make connections positively impact the environment. Stone also talked about how close the group members became throughout the trip and that lasting friendships were made.

“I think it’s raising awareness about the degree that humans have impacted our environment, which basically opens the door to activism and actually taking charge of your own groups like this and events like this,” Stone said.

Christine Lagattolla, assistant director of outdoor adventures, helped initiate the first alternative spring break trip two years ago with a backpacking trip to Georgia.

“We try to use any avenues possible from really athletic type trips like volunteer work, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, and then we do some more technical stuff like rock climbing,” Lagattolla said.

Lagattolla said the main goal of Outdoor Adventures is to get students outside and to experience new and different things.

“We’re just wanting people to experience it for the first time,” Lagattolla said. “A lot of kids around here maybe haven’t had that opportunity, but we try to push the boundaries for the more experienced part.”