Concerned citizens from the Whitby Blue Dot group joined us for a Love Your Lake Cleanup at Kiwanis Heydenshore Park. We cleaned up for an hour and found so much stuff! It was nice to have so much help. Each person would fill a bag or two and then bring them to Ariel and I to be counted. There was so much stuff we ended up spending an extra hour just counting everything up. The number one item was plastic pieces, this includes plastic items that are unidentifiable. These are usually fairly small and sharp, definitely not something you want to step on at the beach. Next up was cigarette butts, but I'm sure if we had of cleaned up the parking lot they would have been the number one find. A majority of the remaining items were from food and beverage products, food wrappers, plastic and glass bottles, bottle caps, straws, etc. This is the type of stuff you'd expect to see at the park, and it's also the stuff that each visitor is responsible for disposing of properly. If everyone cleaned up after their picnics we would have picked up 643 fewer items on this cleanup. We want to keep our parks clean, and the best way to do it is to bring snacks that don't have any packaging. Even if you put your garbage in the trash can it doesn't mean it will stay there. Critters and wind are two culprits of littering. Bring reusable containers and bottles. It's easy to do and you'll be helping to preserve our green spaces by minimizing the litter that accumulates.

There's still time to enter our contests! Enter our Tim Card and Mug contest HERE! And our Beach Bag contest HERE! And if you've come out to a cleanup you can receive 5 entries for the Beach Bag PER cleanup you attend!