TAMPA, Fla — Sixty-two scooters were fished out of the Hillsborough River on Tuesday by a team of 13 divers. Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, a nonprofit organization, coordinated the cleanup with Tampa Police, FWC, Adventure Outfitters, Tampa Parks and Rec, and the Illuminate Group to clean the river.
Along with dozens of electric scooters, traffic cones, bicycles, chairs and even a wheelchair were recovered from the water.
The scooters are pretty heavy. And it's unlikely accidental that caused them to end up in the bottom of the river.
"Unfortunately some of this stuff, especially when it comes to the scooters, it doesn't blow in [the water]," said Al Antolik, the Trash Free Waters Manager with Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful. "People are throwing them in the river."
In the three and a half hours crews spent on the water, they searched for scooters in areas where they were previously found and discovered several. The Platt Bridge, Kennedy Bridge, Laurel Bridge, and the Riverwalk section north of Laurel Bridge were all combed through by divers.
Antolik estimates it costs a couple of grand for each boat and dive team to conduct clean-up efforts.
"It is expensive to come out and do this type of cleanup," he said.
The city of Tampa has contracts with each of the three electric scooter companies.
"The City will be working with both Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful and the scooter providers to organize the removal of the remaining devices that they were unable to get to today," Tampa's smart mobility manager, Brandon Campbell, wrote in an email following KTBB's first scooter cleanup.
According to the city, the scooter companies are contractually obligated to remove their scooters when they end up in places they're not supposed to be — including the bottom of the river.
"In this case, we had the good fortune to have some proactive volunteers who wanted to help out," Campbell said. "However, absent this we would expect the scooter companies to come up with another solution."
Representatives from all three companies, Lime, Bird, and Spin volunteered to help in the cleanup effort. Each company donated to Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful's clean-up costs. Bird donated $500. Lime and Spin each committed to donating $1,500.
When asked if a $1,500 donation was enough, a Spin representative noted there is room to help this issue more.
"There's always more we can do," Josh Bear, the Spin regional manager said. We're always looking to partner with organizations to help contribute as much as we can."
For local representatives, it was time well spent to pitch in with KTBB.
"It's personal to me," Spenser Johnston, the Spin operations manager for the Tampa Region said. "I live in Tampa, our entire local team all live locally. We, along with everyone who lives here has an obligation to keep Tampa clean and beautiful. And that includes the waterways.
In a statement from Lime, General Manager CJ Shaw said it's the company's goal to prevent e-scooters from ending up in the water and to support organizations like Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful in their cleanup efforts.
"We're proud to say that our prevention steps like no parking zones on bridges have already made a positive impact and we are always happy to support cleanup efforts like this one today," Shaw said. "We sent a team to assist in a cleanup after the Gasparilla festival and we'll continue working to keep Tampa beautiful and moving on shared, affordable, and carbon-free transportation options."
The electric scooters operate on lithium batteries, which contain a lot of harmful chemicals. After the scooters are removed from the water, each company takes its respective scooters back to its warehouse to be recycled.
"We work with local recyclers to recycle every element of the scooter," Johnston said. "This includes lithium batteries, which are obviously harmful to the environment. We partner with local recyclers to make sure every element of the scooter is recycled."
This was the fourth river clean-up Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful has coordinated. In total, 190 electric scooters have been removed from the Hillsborough River. There is still work to be done with large areas of the river unchecked for large litter. KTBB is already working on coordinating its next cleanup in the coming months.