es! -[ laughs ] -yeah, i knew it! -[ screams ] oh, my god! ♪ lemonis: it's the largest river system in the united states -- 2,300 miles of power, stretching from north of st. paul, minnesota, down to new orleans, louisiana. it was america's first superhighway and still carries more than 500 million tons of cargo every year. ♪ maybe you knew all that about the mississippi river. but here's something i bet you didn't know -- the mighty mississippi... look at that. is that a jordan? nope. lemonis: ...is mighty dirty. careful. watch your hands. i thought pulling a fridge off a riverbank was pretty crazy,

but that's what you get when you hang out with chad pregracke. that's kind of the stuff -- like, volvo, front ends of semis, lots of tires. there's a hot tub. there was a big piece of foam, milk crates, you name it. lot of plastics, man. lot of plastics. because it floats. 'cause it floats and there's a lot of it. hope floats, too. i don't know if you know that or not. it does. but i wonder how much hope there is on this river right now. fact is, america's rivers are drowning in garbage -- hundreds of thousands of pounds of it. 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean from land gets there from rivers. it's hard to look at this and not feel completely overwhelmed. that's why i'm here with chad. and so when you first started coming here, was there trash everywhere here? dude, unbelievable. he's dedicated his life to cleaning up the country's waterways with the non-profit he founded -- living lands & waters. i grew up right on the water. like, my parents' house is 10 feet from the water's edge.

he started out solo 22 years ago -- one guy, swimming upstream against a tide of trash. i started living around all the garbage out there. and as a teenager, i was just, like, "this is unbelievable. this is wrong." but if the mississippi is a force of nature, well, so is chad. all right, guys! two decades later, living lands & waters has a five-barge fleet, dozens of national sponsors, and thousands of volunteers. ♪ today, chad, his wife, tammy, and their crew are working outside memphis with their newest recruit -- me. hey. what, brother? watch where you're walking. what does that mean? there's snakes. oh, come on. yeah, just watch what you're picking up and where you're walking. why did you have to tell me that? [ laughs ] 'cause i don't want -- i just want you to know. no, no, but i would rather find out later. [ laughs ] how freaked are you about snakes?

no, not at all. okay, are you? yes. why did you have to tell me that? kick anything before you pick it up. oh, man. [ laughs ] lemonis: okay, i didn't realize this was gonna involve snakes. watch that snake. pregracke: there could be. this might be in there bad, i don't know. little by little. becker: there's more bags in the bow of our boat if anybody needs a second one. yeah. he's killing it out here. think people would be shocked if they saw all this trash laying in the water, laying on the banks? pregracke: yeah. yeah. totally. i think so, yeah. i definitely did not have a grasp of it -- understand the gravity of the problem until you're in it. right. a lot of people, 'cause of you, are gonna see how bad it is, and, uh... yeah, it's bad. ...it's bad. i'll take another bag. chad. yeah? any time you want to pick up any garbage, just let me know, okay, all right? well, marcus, yeah, i'm trying to -- let me tell you how it works -- dive, roll, and pick up.

come on. you know i can't resist a little trash talk. tammy, this guy doesn't work much. he talks a lot. no. this guy talks a lot. that's how he got to where he is. i'm just following his lead. i think we picked up 319 pounds, not including the refrigerator. not bad. we -- we only spent an hour. lemonis: and we're just getting started. time to go to the next spot. being from florida, i didn't really think about the mississippi river much. sure, yeah. if you live in california, you don't think about it. right. being on it, it's more of an important artery than anybody realizes. geographically, you might not be tied to the river, but economically, if you live in this country, you definitely are. lemonis: the trash just keeps coming, and chad and his crew, well, they keep picking it up -- an estimated 10.5 million pounds since 1998. he did find one treasure on the river -- his wife, tammy. you guys fell in love on the barge? becker: yes, we did. is there a whole different lifestyle for people that -- that work and live on the river

than -- than most people would know? i feel like, yeah. there's times where i've been here on this river draining these boats out at 2:00 in the morning during an ice and sleet storm, because if we didn't, it was gonna fill up and then freeze and could possibly sink. is this what you thought your life would be like? not at all. i knew i wanted to do something unusual and not the traditional, you know, get married out of school, have kids, and the picket fence, you know? i knew that wasn't my route, but i certainly didn't know it'd be this. lemonis: it is hard work, and after a few hours and a very full boat, we're back at the barge to unload. 60 pounds? pregracke: it's bad, but you know what? it is getting better slowly. lemonis: is it better? there's a lot less trash. visually it looks a lot better. one bumper! even in the floods, there's a lot less stuff coming down than there was when i was a kid. hold on a second. let me clear this. you ready? yup. but i don't have, like, one particular place

or story to tell you. i have thousands. becker: nice! pregracke: all right, that's a wrap. shut it down. lemonis: everything chad's team picks up gets sorted at volunteer events around the country. all right, guys. then almost all of it gets recycled. pregracke: this is what we got out of just a two-mile stretch. it's about teamwork. it's about teamwork. lemonis: this one's in st. louis with anheuser-busch -- one of chad's corporate sponsors. pregracke: when i think of these people coming out and helping us, i think of that as a way of serving your country. i think the new green is really red, white, and blue. and i think the green movement hasn't moved that far, because people aren't saying, "hey, conserving america's resources, i think that that's patriotic." lemonis: no doubt about it. i think meeting someone like you gives me renewed hope that there's people that actually care more about it than others. it still amazes me that this many people still show up, as many as they do, and help out.

lemonis: chad's built a movement on the mississippi. it reminds me that all it takes to tackle a mighty problem is someone who's willing to try. i'm marcus lemonis. trevor:: we're flex watches.fit"... we make watches that give back. lemonis: at an l.a. watch business with a powerful mission... travis: each color represented a different charity. lemonis: ...the owners have lost their way, and now they're losing time.

how much longer could you keep the business open? travis: another few months. [ sighs ] lemonis: their branding is unfocused. this is a total mess. there's no signage. there's no point-of-purchase material. there's nothing. their process is rushed. feels like a high-school art project. and a painful tragedy has them questioning their purpose. travis: you're allowed to talk about the fact that we did charity and -- trevor: that is not our direction. travis: let's be honest. trevor: stop cutting me off. travis: this is who we are! lemonis: if i can't help these guys return to their roots... so you did $1 million with the watches, and then you're like, "that's too much." brad: if it's not broke, don't fix it. lemonis: ...this business will stop ticking for good. travis: walk away, then. lemonis: my name is marcus lemonis, and i risk my own money to save struggling businesses. we're not gonna wake up every morning wondering if we have a job. we're gonna wake up every morning wondering how many jobs we have to do. it's not always pretty. everything's gonna change. everything. but i do it to save jobs and i do it to make money.