My name is Chad Pregracke, and I clean up America’s rivers. The Mississippi River was literally my backyard while growing up in East Moline, IL. My older brother and I spent the majority of our time on, in, and around the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. Between my childhood and first job as a commercial shell diver, I witnessed first-hand the staggering amounts of trash both in the water’s depths and along its banks. At age 17, I began single-handedly removing garbage from the river because nobody seemed to care.
In 1998, at 23, I founded Living Lands & Waters. Today, the organization has grown to include a full staff and fleet of barges and equipment. We average nine states a year along the Mississippi, Illinois, and Ohio Rivers, as well as many of their tributaries. Since the organization's inception, my crew and I, with the help of over 137,000 volunteers, have removed 14,080,268 lbs of garbage from 33 rivers in 23 states.
Over the years, the organization has expanded its mission to include free educational workshops, tree-planting initiatives, invasive species removal, and, most recently, a floating workforce-development center.
Beyond Living Lands & Waters, I work alongside my lovely wife, Tammy, to produce injection-molded pallets using 100% recycled HDPE. A portion of which is collected through LL&W cleanups! After living on a barge and cleaning up America’s rivers together for nearly 20 years, we were appalled by how difficult and costly it was to find a place to process and recycle the large, rigid plastics we were pulling from the rivers. So, we decided to create a solution. Our company, Green Current Solutions, is a culmination of our passion for the natural environment and our drive to make change.
I love what I do, and I love America’s rivers. I saw a problem, and I wanted to fix it. People talk about going out to change the world. To me, that sounds overwhelming – “the world.” It’s not about the world. It’s about your world.
In 1998, at 23, I founded Living Lands & Waters. Today, the organization has grown to include a full staff and fleet of barges and equipment. We average nine states a year along the Mississippi, Illinois, and Ohio Rivers, as well as many of their tributaries. Since the organization's inception, my crew and I, with the help of over 137,000 volunteers, have removed 14,080,268 lbs of garbage from 33 rivers in 23 states.
Over the years, the organization has expanded its mission to include free educational workshops, tree-planting initiatives, invasive species removal, and, most recently, a floating workforce-development center.
Beyond Living Lands & Waters, I work alongside my lovely wife, Tammy, to produce injection-molded pallets using 100% recycled HDPE. A portion of which is collected through LL&W cleanups! After living on a barge and cleaning up America’s rivers together for nearly 20 years, we were appalled by how difficult and costly it was to find a place to process and recycle the large, rigid plastics we were pulling from the rivers. So, we decided to create a solution. Our company, Green Current Solutions, is a culmination of our passion for the natural environment and our drive to make change.
I love what I do, and I love America’s rivers. I saw a problem, and I wanted to fix it. People talk about going out to change the world. To me, that sounds overwhelming – “the world.” It’s not about the world. It’s about your world.
