Melodious electronic wails flowed from an itinerant guitarist's tiny amplifier under the Auction Avenue bridge on a temperate Saturday afternoon. He watched kayakers paddle up and down the Wolf River Harbor, sunshine glitter on the water and a slew of people on shore wearing blue latex gloves.

"We're being serenaded," said James Baker, project director of Tennessee Sierra Club's Water Sentinels, as he stepped gingerly on the stones at the free public boat ramp.

Baker and about 15 other volunteers carried white bags and used reach-and-grab tools to remove the abundance of foam-plastic cups, plastic beverage bottles and other litter.

The group -- this time with volunteers from the Sierra Club, local U.S. Coast Guard unit and Germantown High School -- has cleaned up the harbor shores each April and October since 2003.

But Baker said he inadvertently scheduled this year's fall cleaning to coincide with International Cleanup Weekend, which

was co-sponsored by Google Maps and the United Nations environment program. The Sierra Club was among 30 organizations collaborating to support community litter cleanups worldwide.

"It's important for people to get out and roll up their sleeves and take an active role in protecting the environment," he said. "This ramp down here, this is a quality-of-life and economic issue. Kayakers come out here and enjoy this. Prospective employers, they come out here and see all this stuff.

"And litter is such an easy thing to take care of."

But it sure can be persistent.

"I've seen them do it before. It's really nice," said kayaker Tom Etzel, pulling his vessel from atop his car. "But next time the water goes up and goes back down, it will look like they were never here."

He blames part of the problem on the storm sewers that catch trash from city streets and pour it into the harbor at the Bayou Gayoso Pumping Station at North Front and Saffarans.

"I wish they would do something about that," Etzel added.

City officials plan to do something about that by installing a screen mechanism at the pumping station to trap litter before it reaches the harbor.

Baker said state officials also could do something by adopting the Tennessee Beverage Container Deposit Act to encourage recycling. The act would put a 5-cent refundable deposit each container of beer, soda, bottled water and other designated beverages sold in the state. The bill is expected to return for next year's legislative session.

"It would put me out of a job," he said. "We get litter from people who don't care and throw it out their car window."

But Glenn Smith of Clinton, Okla., who sat between his guitar case and hiker-style backpack, said he isn't one of them.

"I pick mine up. I put my cans there," he said, pointing behind the log he was sitting on. "A couple of old-timers come by and pick 'em up."

As the volunteers cleaned, Smith played a tune he was improvising. He comes out to the harbor because "it's nice and peaceful," he said. "And I talk to God."