In March 2024, the National Bell Festival rolled up our sleeves and got our hands dirty. While we’re no strangers to dusty, pigeon-laden bell towers, mucking through slippery riverbank marshes and roadside drainage ditches is something else entirely. For five months, we embarked on a mission to help clean our nation’s capital of unsightly litter and debris, and to amass materials for one very special project.
Thankfully, we weren’t alone, having enlisted community partners like the Anacostia Watershed Society, Casey Trees, Community Forklift, Potomac Conservancy, Potomac Riverkeeper Network, and Ward 8 Woods to keep their eyes peeled for other bits of discarded trash. Why? We wanted to showcase how valuable materials are casually discarded – and how something truly beautiful can emerge when we all work together to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
We tasked our friends with saving any metal bits from their community clean-up initiatives. Across parks and green spaces, rivers and streams, volunteers culled man-made debris and then stashed away for us any found bits of copper and tin, along with bronze and brass alloys. These are the perfect ingredients for a bell.
Image: Salvaged metal recovered from D.C.-area parks and rivers is piled onto a tarp and ready for sorting.
Among the reclaimed and salvaged bits of metal were:
- Keys
- Bullet casings
- Light fixtures
- Doorknobs
- Water taps
- Wire
- Pipes
- Sounding rod
- Brackets
- Spigot
- Bedframe
Today, D.C.-area parks and both the Potomac and Anacostia rivers shine a little brighter without the weight of all that man-made debris – and soon, that trash will be melted down to cast a new bell, aptly dubbed the Litter Bell.
In all, we culled 168 lbs. of brass and 11 lbs. of copper (after weeding out nearly 50 lbs. of less-desirable brass-plated metals and steel, which were subsequently recycled). These non-ferrous metals were then broken down, boxed up, and shipped out to The Verdin Company, a six-generation family of bell makers, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Image: A National Bell Festival volunteer removes non-ferrous metals and plastics from the haul of salvaged materials in Falls Church, Virginia, on July 27, 2024.
Image: Four large boxes of salvaged metals are packed and ready for shipping to the bell foundry.
When bell foundries cast a new bell, they must melt approximately 15% more metal than what the bell is expected to weigh because molten bronze or brass will fill the gates, vents, and pour basin in addition to the bell’s carefully-crafted mold. This suggests that the Litter Bell, when it returns to Washington, D.C., will weigh around 150 lbs.
The Litter Bell will be unveiled at the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum, home of the Center for Environmental Justice, on New Year’s Day during the 2025 National Bell Festival. What a way to ring in a New Year!
Cover image: A National Bell Festival volunteer sorts and packs salvaged metals for shipping in Falls Church, Virginia, on July 27, 2024.
