Cleanup squad makes positive waves across city

The period after the snow melts isn’t when Winnipeg is at its most attractive.

As months of hidden trash and accumulated waste emerge, streets and sidewalks across the city quickly become covered in litter.

But Take Pride Winnipeg’s latest litter index has found the city looks cleaner than it did earlier this spring. Every area of Winnipeg showed improvement.

The organization’s overall litter index score dropped from 5.92 after the snow melted to 3.47 in its latest assessment. The index measures litter levels on a scale of one to 10, with one representing a perfectly clean area and 10 representing the worst levels of litter.

Behind that improvement are thousands of volunteers, students and community members who have spent the spring and summer picking up garbage.

Take Pride Winnipeg said more than 12,000 students and teachers from 38 schools, along with more than 3,700 people from families, community groups and businesses, have participated in cleanup efforts.

“When we do our first litter index, the city looks awful when the snow melts,” said Tom Ethans, executive director of Take Pride Winnipeg. “And by getting all these groups and the families and students that we hire, the difference is unreal.”

Ethans was out helping Green Wave students clean up litter Friday afternoon at Ellice Avenue and Empress Street — an area he said is often among the city’s biggest litter challenges in the spring.

“They get a real sense of accomplishment by helping to make this area clean or the whole city clean and beautiful,” Ethans said.

Green Wave is a summer neighbourhood beautification program run by Take Pride Winnipeg that employs people between the ages of 16 and 19 to help clean up public spaces across the city. Students work Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Amanda Feader, 18, has worked with Green Wave for the last three years.

During an eight-hour shift, she said she can fill around 20 buckets with garbage.

“It’s good to know that the environment, the community, is usually very thankful,” Feader said. “It’s also a really nice sense of accomplishment.”

The work can also be frustrating.

“Sometimes we’ll be in areas that we’ve cleaned the night before or the morning before, and we go back to that same area the next day, and it’ll be so dirty,” she said.

Feader said littering is a big problem in Winnipeg.

“There’ll be trash around the trash bins, even though it’s not even full. Like, you could just put it in the trash bin,” she said.

While the organization cannot cover every street, Ethans said cleanup crews are able to reach many of the city’s main routes.

Cigarette butts remain the most common item found during cleanups, making up an estimated 30 to 35 per cent of the litter collected, Ethans said. To help reduce the problem, Take Pride Winnipeg gives away free pocket ashtrays.

Ethans said busy events can also produce lots of litter. The Fringe Festival has resulted in more garbage in the Exchange District in recent weeks, while downtown remains an ongoing challenge, though he credited the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ with regularly organizing cleanup efforts.

“I think a lot of people litter because they see other litter, and so they think it’s OK for me to litter. It’s because people are lazy, and … they’ll use the excuse that there’s no garbage can around,” Ethans said.

Despite that, Feader said seeing the immediate impact of the work keeps her motivated.

“I know sometimes you’ll go and then the next day it’s busy, but you still feel that sense of accomplishment, and you do see a difference,” Feader said.

zoe.pierce@freepress.mb.ca