If Iona Cadell had a dollar for every time she’s passed by the ditches along Otway Road on the way to the ski trails at Otway Nordic Centre, she’d have enough cash to fill one of the garbage bags she was carrying Sunday on the annual Earth Day clean-up.
Unfortunately for the 15-year-old Cadell, there was no money waiting to be picked up along the road on her three-kilometre route.
Now that most of the snow has melted, months of accumulated human litter has been left behind and Cadell was on a mission to get rid of that unsightly mess.
“We found a couple of gross things,” she said. “Some underwear and some bottles of urine. It was disgusting.”
Cadell spent two hours walking the ditches along Otway with her friend and teammate on the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club’s biathlon team, Payton Sinclair, while Iona’s 13-year-old sister Isla shared the cleanup duties with Payton’s brother Liam. Together they filled six bags, which were brought to the designated waste bin by Payton and Liam’s mother Stacy.
“We did the same thing last year and we also cleaned up the YRB highway - we did that for fundraising (for the biathlon team),” said Iona. “There’s a lot of garbage around where we train and we just wanted to give back to Earth.”
Organized by the Recycling and Environmental Action Committee (REAPS), the spring clean-up happens every year on the last Sunday in April. Bags of garbage collected by registered participants are dropped off at six waste bins set up around the city.
“We did the garbage thing and I wanted to take part because it’s important that we give back to the community,” said Isla Cadell. “We also help with maintaining the facilities that we use.
“We picked up a couple bottles of urine, a few condoms and lots of soggy McDonald’s packets. When we cleaned up the highway last year we found a ten-dollar bill.”
Seventy groups registered for Sunday’s cleanup, according REAPS executive director Terri McClymont.
“The city will tally it up by mid-week and that way we’ll know the volume of materials collected,” said McClymont. “We weigh the bins when they get tipped and all the stuff city trucks are picking up today.”
Last year, 3,047 participants used 2,541 bags and covered 355 kilometres of city streets to pick up 6,900 kilograms of garbage. In 2019, 168 km of roadways were covered and 26,000 kg of waste was recovered. The event was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic.
“People were cleaning up all last year, just to get out,” said McClymont. “There’s one group, Clean PG, and they’re out all the time. I’m anxious to find out what our volume will be this year.
“A couple of mattresses and bed frames were found today. Somebody did find a hundred dollars one year.”
This is the 15th year REPS has facilitated the event but McClymont says the city has been doing it more than 100 years. The event was sponsored by Canfor and cleanup participants were eligible for prizes. Hell Yeah PG Facebook administrator Dave Mothus collected 200 gift cards from local businesses and he was out on his bike handing them out to the pickers.
