Spring Up to Clean Up 2008 Honourable Mention Stories
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IF NOT YOU, THEN WHO? By: Taina Maki Chahal
It wasn't hard to pick the area that I would clean for Spring Up to Clean Up, as it's an area I began picking up garbage from while out for my morning walk. My "area" is the steep slope of the overpass at Marina Park down to the shoreline and the banks of McVicars Creek from the railway bridge to the lake. I walk over the overpass to Marina Park 4-5x a week, summer and winter, and garbage littering this area is a recurring problem. I've cleaned it each year for the last 3 years and each year the garbage returns with a vengeance.
It's not an easy area to clean. The slope is very steep and it is straining on your knee joints to brace yourself against the slope. I can only pick for an hour and a quarter at a time because of the difficulty and the discomfort. So, I do the job over the course of the month, tackling it about 2 or 3 times a week.
The first time I cleaned up the slope of the overpass, another early morning walker stopped to tell me, "It'll be right back to being full of garbage. You'll see." I wasn't deterred or disheartened, even though she was dead right. The next day after I congratulated myself for finally finishing tidying the slope, a cigarette package appeared. Then, a plastic water bottle. Candy wrappers. The unmistakable contours of a plastic LCBO bag.
Clothing also litters this area, from baseball caps to sweaters, jeans, shorts, sweatshirts, the odd glove that an angler may have lost, 2 packsacks that students may have lost, and many pairs of men's underwear, including these star-spangled ones.
An aftershave package thrown out of the window of a car driving up the overpass lies on the ground. It becomes an ironic symbol of The Essence of Man: Brut. Discarded, it becomes a reminder that we are brutalizing the land with our stuff, with our consumer choices. It becomes a symbol of the material problems of a Man over Nature philosophy.
Sigh. By fall time, plenty of garbage returns to the overpass slope. I wondered to myself, is it worth the back-breaking work? Cleaning it up only to see it get littered all over again as if I hadn't done the work?
Last November, one early morning with winter announcing its upcoming presence through a smattering of snow and a cold northwesterly wind, I saw a tiny olive green and yellow warbler hopping about the ground by the overpass.
I was afraid she'd forgotten to migrate, or had been left behind by her flock. I worried how she would survive the coming cold, and even imagined trying to catch her and bring her home until next spring. Poor thing, I thought, she's doomed. She'll never survive. Turns out she's a very late migrant; she'll be on her way soon, said my bird expert friend. She'll be fine. That small vulnerable but strong bird stayed in my mind and was the spark that reminded me to stick to my conviction to continue cleaning the overpass of garbage. I have to! For the birds! It's their home!
So this spring I again set out to clean the overpass slope and the shore of the lake by the mouth of the McVicars. I do my cleaning for the birds, for the mallards, goldeneyes, Canada geese, loons, and ringed-billed gulls that frequent the area. For the American redstarts, American gold finches, yellow warblers, and brown-headed cowbirds that frolic in the area.
For the beaver, the muskrat and the mink that live along the shore of the overpass.
Staying positive among a recurring and formidable problem such as litter is one way to stay motivated to work towards change. I found this cheery handmade crocheted daisy afghan amongst the bags of paper coffee cups, beer bottles, plastic water bottles, chocolate bar wrappers, cigarette packages, and other common products of our disposable society that I bagged. I brought it home and washed it twice and hung it in the sun to dry. I spent some time pulling small twigs and burrs off of it. It looks like the kind that was popular in the Flower Power days of the 60s and 70s. Reclaimed, refreshened, and reused, the daisy afghan, like the olive green and yellow warbler, becomes a symbol of hope, one that speaks of endurance despite the odds.
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FROM THE MOSE FAMILY KIDS By: Mom, Evie. Kids, Rylee, Hailey and Zak
Something we experienced during our clean up event was that I found a bunch of roll up the rim cups. The best part was when I found a roll up the rim cup that had a FREE donut on it. My sister and my brother started to fight with me because they wanted the donut. Then we all started racing to the Tim Horton's cups and skipping all the other garbage we saw. My mom took the cup and we had to pick up all the garbage we saw. When we were done for that day my mom took all of us for donuts and drinks at Tim Horton's. (we used the one I picked up from the ditch he he). My mom says maybe dad would start helping us with the spring cleaning if I would have won a car or a boat. I am sending a picture of me and my brother and sister. I am wearing my shirt from Christmas that says Don't be a litter bug!! I love it.
Rylee Mose (age 9) --some help/editing from mom.
Our family's annual spring up to clean up event was much more exciting and much quicker this year.........we were lucky enough to have the help of "our friendly neighbourhood spiderman!!!!!!!!!"
In his spiderman costume, my five year old son, Zak, was able to pick up the big heavy things that his 2 older sisters were struggling with. He was able to climb a little tree and retrieve a plastic bag that was dangling from a branch. He collected 3/4 of a bag of garbage that was under brush and near a fence that was waaaaaaaaaaaay to hard for regular old mom to pick up!!! Spiderman had a lot of great energy that kept the rest of us going. He kept looking for more and more special pieces of garbage for SPIDERMAN to collect.
We may have gotten a lot of extra looks from those driving by, but we also got a lot of extra trash picked up this spring. Way to go Spidey!
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