Gatineau Spring Cleaning

This morning the children and I participated as volunteers in our city's spring cleanup. We arrived at Parc Moussette at nine o'clock, where we received rubber gloves, a trash bag and a recycling bag. A girl showed us on the map where we were to work and we set off to clean up our neighborhood park. We picked trash from a bit past the mesh fence by the playground all the way up the trail to Brébeuf Park.

It was quite fun doing this with the children, despite the chill temperature, the rain and the wind. I am proud that they participated willingly. No one complained about having to get up early on a Saturday. No one pointed out that we weren't the ones who had thrown all this trash on the ground in the first place. Daughter took the job very seriously. Second Son regarded it as kind of a treasure hunt. He kept running ahead to see if he could find some really big piece of trash like a styrofoam cup or a plastic bag. First Son also worked very hard, climbing under bushes to get at the trash that the wind had blown under there. As for me, I was happy to have the kids outside and doing something for their community. It is true that Second Son asked when we were going to get paid, (ha! ha! the innocent six-year-old!) but he didn't react at all when I said that we were doing this for free. I would like to think that today's activity strengthened their community values.

A few words about what we found out there: most of what we picked up along the bicycle trail were cigarette butts and gum wrappers. The cigarette butts were pretty steady all along the river, with a larger concentration by the railings at the rapids. I myself like to stand at the railings and stare at the rushing water, and I can understand how this might be a relaxing place to light up for someone who smokes. Unfortunately, there is no trash can right at that spot. Although there is one not too far away beside a park bench, I guess smokers are just not going to walk the 20 steps there to toss their butts. As many of the butts were past the railing, I guess some people may have intended to toss them into the river, but their toss was short. It would be a good idea for the city to install a Butt-Out on the railing. I don't think this would be conducive to smoking. I think people smoke anyway. They could at least throw their butts into a container meant for that purpose instead of into the river.

There were only a few coffee cups, but there were quite a few beer cans and bottles. I was pleased to see that we didn't find a single syringe or condom. (Don't forget: this is our neighborhood park!) We also came across some houseplants and soil that had been dumped in the bushes by the river, and a little further on there were quite a few granola and chocolate bar wrappers. Most of these were concentrated around benches or blown under the bushes by the wind.

At 10:20 the boys had had enough. They were cold and tired, and daughter was complaining of a headache, so we headed back to the community centre to let them know we were heading home.

I front of the community center, we noticed that the ground was covered with cigarette butts, and that no one had picked them up because everyone was picking litter down at the beach and along the river. It's too bad, because it was just gross. The city uses this place for children's day camps during spring break and summer vacation. The rooms are used for many activities, like seniors' bridge night and other meetings. People also book the community center for weddings. Imagine showing up for your wedding reception with cigarette butts lining both sides of the walkway from the parking lot to the door.

Gross. First Son took this picture after we had started cleaning up, so this doesn't even represent what was really on the ground.

Despite how we were on our way home, Daughter started picking up the cigarette butts. I was very proud of her. It was a lot of work, but she was willing to do it. So I pitched in too while the boys went inside to warm up.

It was amazing how many cigarette butts were on the ground, especially considering that there was a Butt-Out right by the door, as well as a trash can. :/ When we were done, you could hardly see any of the trash we had collected by the river, there were so many butts:

Now, if you ask me, it is a person's own decision if they want to smoke, but it really is rude to litter so carelessly in public places. I wouldn't have let the children pick any of this stuff up if it hadn't been for the plastic gloves like the ones I'm wearing in the picture above. I wouldn't want my children handling anything with so much poison in it. Here is a close-up, to drive the point home:

You can't even see all the styrofoam trays, tissues and other trash that we had spent almost an hour and a half picking before we tackled the cigarette butts in front of the community center. And it took us 45 minutes to pick up the butts, between Daughter, myself, and the two boys who occasionally popped out to help when they had gotten warm enough inside.

All in all, an enriching experience for everybody. As a bonus, there was a BBQ at another community centre for all the volunteers, so once we had changed out of our muddy clothes, we headed there for hot dogs, juice and apples courtesy of the city of Gatineau and the Alymer Optimist Club.