REAL PEOPLE/The Lady of the Lake
Cleanup on Isle Two
Photographer Marie Constantin started picking up litter alone—and created a community
Constantin at the scene of the grime
ONE DAY A few years back, I was walking my dog down at Capitol Lake, near where the Louisiana Capitol looms. The litter was denser than I’d ever seen it. I just sort of froze, staring at the trash on the shore and in the water: plastic bottles, Styrofoam cups, anything that floats.
I wanted to clean it all up myself, but I knew it was too big a task for one person. I wouldn’t even be able to make a dent, so why try? Then I recalled the words of Mother Teresa, whom I’d been privileged to get to know through my work as a photographer. When people asked her how she faced the insurmountable task of caring for Calcutta’s ill and dying, she would say, “I’m not called to be successful; I’m called to be faithful.”
Those words inspired me to try to clean the lake. I promised myself I’d collect litter for one hour per day for a year. Then COVID hit, my work as a photographer dried up, and I started spending more than an hour a day at the lake, fishing out trash. It made me feel better to be out there every day, even if the trash kept coming.
After I posted on Facebook about my project, volunteers began to come help. We’d see some progress, but then a storm would blow through, bringing more litter with it. And it dawned on me that all this trash wasn’t coming from litterbugs. I did some research and learned that Louisiana had no stormwater management program. Whatever garbage made its way into the feeder waterways had nowhere to go but the lake.
Some friends and I decided to found the nonprofit Louisiana Stormwater Coalition to advocate for change. One of our projects focuses on a wetland where litter has been collecting for decades. With grant funding, we got the area professionally cleaned—they hauled out about 81 tons of litter! Engineers are currently working on solutions to prevent litter from reentering the wetland.
At a bayou where people kayaked alongside litter, we made their paddle trail litter-free by partnering with local organizations. We all bought a litter-capturing boom and tied it to two trees, and we pay to have it cleaned out after it rains.
At Capitol Lake, the Edwards administration has set aside $1 million toward finding solutions that will keep the lake litter-free. Meanwhile, the rains continue to bring new litter and we continue to pick it up.
I was never really alone. There were a lot of people out there who cared. It just took one person to start working so that we could all find each other. —As told to Mary Ann Sternberg
Marie Constantin is a Baton Rouge, Louisiana–based photographer and the author of Finding Calcutta: Memoirs of a Photographer.