In August, a group of self-described “old ladies” fished out a toilet bowl from a pond in Massachusetts, U.S., and have gained local fame since then. The group is named Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage (OLAUG), and so far, they’ve cleaned up 18 ponds, removing everything from tires and beer bottles to the bright blue toilet.
To join the group, you must be a woman, able to swim half a mile in under 30 minutes and more than 64 years old, Susan Bauer, 84, the founder of OLAUG, told Mongabay by phone.
She says older people bring a different perspective. “It’s the age of gratitude where you’ve lost enough so you’re really grateful for what’s left, whether that’s a husband or a child or it’s that you used to hear whip-poor-wills and now you don’t, you used to see spotted turtles and now you don’t,” Susan adds.
Susan started OLAUG with a few friends during the pandemic. Today, her group is 25 strong and she has a waiting list of women who want to collect trash with her. She says the success of her group is that it’s fun. “We wade out of the water better, kinder, happier, more empowered women. Our product is joy. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to scale up joy than it is to scale up sacrifice.”
“It’s the Zen of trash picking,” she adds.
OLAUG works with one kayaker for every two swimmers. The kayaks haul most of the trash the swimmers collect. The group also engages with local pond associations and asks them to invite the community to come watch the day of the dive.
Often, people start out as skeptics. “The onlookers sort of have their arms across their chest. ‘We have a clean pond; there’s no garbage in our pond,’” she says. “Then an hour later when the kayaks come in laden with tires over their bows, Adirondack chairs, rugs, sofas, a toilet occasionally, part of a charcoal grill, fishing rods and of course beer cans, beer cans, beer cans. When they see that stuff coming in, they change.”
Image courtesy of OLAUG
OLAUG is entirely voluntary. Susan says the women who work with her are doing it for the joy, comaraderie and adventure. Also, the cookies.
“We never work for money. We work for cookies. And so, you have to pay us in homemade cookies,” she says.
Susan says women have approached her about starting other chapters of OLAUG, so she is working on a short manual of lessons learned.
“You can’t just grab a kayak and a couple of swimmers and say, let’s see what we can get out of the pond. That’s the tip of the iceberg. You’ve got to get the community building. You’ve got to get the adventure. You’ve got to get the joy,” she says.
Banner image: courtesy of OLAUG