When fourth grader Maxyme Cloutier spots a piece of garbage on the city’s trails, she will pick it up and toss it in a garbage bin.
“I don’t like it,” said Cloutier, a student at Ecole La Prairie.
“It makes me feel like the people don’t care about nature. And I don’t like that.”
The nine-year-old was one of 85 volunteers along with her mother Cindy Rainville and brother Zachary Cloutier, 6, in the city’s Great Shoreline Cleanup on Sunday.
Armed with garbage pickers and gloves, the volunteers picked up rubbish along the Red Deer River shorelines and trails near Kerry Wood Nature Centre.
The annual clean up event is held along shorelines and in communities across Canada in September. Last year, 2,235 kilometres of shoreline was cleared of 98,071 kilograms of litter in the country.
Suzanne Jubb, the city’s community and program facilitator, did not have final garbage numbers for Red Deer on Sunday.
She said volunteers were finding just about everything in the river including kitchen sinks, plastic bags, beer cans, bicycles, rafts and tire rims. In past years, among the dirty offenders of rubbish were cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic bags, caps, lids and disosable cutlery and dishes.
“You can tell having this event is worth having because there is still a lot of garbage around,” she said. “It sounds like a lot of the floaters are leaving garbage behind which is unfortunate.”
While this was the first time Rainville and her children participated in the co-ordinated cleanup, she said, they believe in doing their part even if it means picking up someone else’s rubbish.
“The best place I love being outside my home is in the forest,” she said. “I get frustrated when I see trash around so we try to pick up as much as we can. And my kids have always been very good at throwing their trash in the trashcan and letting people know they should do the same.”
Tony Blake, 57, was a first-time garbage picker. Blake said he hangs out in city parks frequently and felt it was his duty to do his part.
“It’s good to show we care,” he said. “Everybody lives here. There are certain responsiblities that come with that.”
crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com