‘One hell of a mess’: volunteers clean up three tons of trash from Lake Tahoe

Volunteers clean up around Lake Tahoe after Fourth of July: ‘We as single individuals do have an impact.’ Photograph: Courtesy Clean Up the Lake

A team of volunteers that included scuba divers, kayakers and snorkelers has collected more than three tons of trash from Lake Tahoe left behind by Fourth of July revelers.

Colin West, founder and CEO of Clean up the Lake, the group behind the cleanup effort, said the mess was “one of the worst” he’d seen in his years of trash collecting.