Lake Erie’s mythical monster, Bessie, was spotted Wednesday in the Cuyahoga River. But this Bessie looked a bit different from the one of local lore.
Plastic pollution awareness advocate Eddie "Trash Fish" Olschansky, along with artist Ian Petroni and a team of volunteers, crafted their own Bessie from plastic shoes, balls and bottles he’s collected from the river over the last six years.
"We've got a orange construction barrel in there, we've got hard hats, we've got sand shovels and kids' toys," Olschansky said. "It's like an 'I spy.' Every time I look at it I find something new."
Olschansky launched Bessie during a rally held by the People Over Petro Coalition to raise awareness for action along Cleveland’s waterfronts.
"This is the new face of the stressors of the Cuyahoga River. Plastics are one of the biggest problems that we have in this river," he said. "To be able to honor Bessie and make her out of plastic and you know, reclaim a little bit of that damage done to the water that I assume she cares very much about."
The rally featured environmental advocates from across Northeast Ohio including Beth Vild with the Big Love Network in Akron, Dr. Kathy Smachlo with the Cleveland Heights Green Team and Cheryl Johncox with the coalition.
Cleveland is hosting the annual AMI Plastics World Expo Wednesday and Thursday, bringing together plastics representatives with plastics producing, recycling and extrusion industries from around the world.
Hosting the rally in Cleveland during the convention serves as a call to action to encourage city officials to lead a charge against green-washed recycling technologies, said Elle Thoni with the People over Petro Coalition.
"There are these old plastic incineration or plastic burning technologies that are being rebranded, completely green-washed as ... 'advanced or chemical recycling,' but are really just kind of a scam," Thoni said. "They're going up in communities under the guise of sustainability and circularity."
Though their are no chemical recycling industries in Cleveland currently, community activists in Akron continue to push back against Alterra, a company that uses a process called pyrolysis to convert tire scraps into synthetic oil, due to ongoing air quality and public health concerns.
"When you talk to the people that live across the street in row housing, they are all very sick," Vild said. "Whether that's respiratory issues, cardiovascular issues, neurodivergences and neurological problems, infant mortality. Some of the worst health disparities in the country [are] in this area."
Alterra abides by regulations from government agencies to maintain public safety, said Omar Terrie, Alterra Head of Public Affairs in an emailed statement.
"Alterra is rigorously regulated by various government agencies, including Ohio EPA and US EPA air quality experts," Terrie said. "We take our employees' and our community's safety very seriously and go above and beyond what regulators require for Alterra to operate safely."
To make impactful change, Thoni said Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, as the chair emeritus of the bipartisan Climate Mayors coalition, should adopt legislation to discourage ineffective plastic recycling.
"The thing that we're specifically interested in is having him review some draft resolution language against advanced recycling," Thoni said. "That would send a really strong message to industry that they can't continue to pollute our air in our communities without any repercussions."
The mayor's office has been asked to comment but not yet provided one.
In the meantime, Bessie will be making rounds at community events throughout the Cleveland area, to serve as a reminder of how far the city's come in addressing water pollution, and how far it has to go.
"Bessie sort of is a symbol for the the radical imagination it takes to envision a life with less plastic in it," Thoni said, "and to say .... we're willing to think big in terms of how far we're willing to go to to imagine new solutions."
