My friend and I walk these beautiful woods often and come across a ton of trash and get mad. It is unconceivable that in a first world country called Canada, in an urban green space hidden in a beautiful upscale neighborhood -- people would be so irresponsible. Often we are not carrying a bag to collect the trash and talk about cleaning up the space someday.
So this Earth Week I signed up and did just that. I decided to clean up around a ravine that I often visit by myself.
2.5 hrs cleanup later - I lugged 10-15 kilos of garbage through deep woods, fragile ecosystems including the ravine itself that makes up the Joshua Creek. All this garbage would have made into lake Ontario. Yes, that's a lot of trash and most of it got there because of irresponsible teenagers. Our future. So sad.
Let me share some interesting finds.
1. A huge backpack full of brand new Vapes, pipes and quite a bit of raw material - Some young ones will be really mad at me that I got into their hideout and cleaned it out. Couple hundred dollars worth of equipment and stash - Poof. Gone.
I did have second thoughts about it - but too bad my parent instinct kicked in. Own it up if you want to act like a grown up and don't trash my woods.
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| Couple of hundred dollars worth of Vape Stash - Sorry Dudes!!!
2. A diary of dates. This was sad actually, even though the last date was marked with TRF (This is really funny). Some love birds met up for 5 long years and then the diary of their dates with places and times offered to the woods they probably broke up in. People - leave no trace behind - not even of your love life! Take it with you !!! - especially the used condoms that I didn't take pictures of. Do you know there are ticks in the woods?
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| The first date |
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| The last date |
3. A huge landscaping tarp in the ravine, almost 25 meters long that collected a lot of trash and aquatic plants. It was quite heavy and I had to call for help to drag it out half a kilometer away to the roadside trash pickup. Still wondering how it got there to choke the delicate plant and animal life in the ravine.
4. A ton of ziplocks, water bottles, broken beer bottles, candy wrappers, fast food wrappers and Starbuck / Tim Horton's plastic cups. People - If you want to enjoy your goodies in nature, you obviously like to be in nature - then why trash it and convert it into a huge garbage pile? Don't you want to enjoy it the next time around? I am not even talking about next generation. If we continue this lifestyle - You know where all this trash is ending up in - don't you?
Through our waterways, through the aquatic life - through the food chain - in You. So stop using single use plastic things and buy food without wrappers and dispose off responsibly.
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