Clean sweep

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This article was published 21/04/2019 (2458 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As snowbanks recede, trash is released.

No, that’s not an old saying, but in Winnipeg, it might as well be. Warmer weather has finally arrived after the coldest winter in 40 years, and the snow piles that flanked our roads for months on end have retreated.

Every year as the snow melts, the six-months’-worth of garbage it blanketed — from fast-food wrappers and plastic bags to Slurpee cups and cigarette butts — reemerges, and reminds us it isn’t going anywhere unless we roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Thankfully, there are organizations dedicated to cleaning up the rubbish, and engaging citizens to slap on some gloves and turn the city from trash-strewn to spotless.

“Right now, we are at the worst,” says Tom Ethans, executive director of Take Pride Winnipeg, from his fifth-floor Lombard Avenue headquarters. “After the snow melts you see the litter on the streets that was there all winter, and we don’t look good.”

Founded in 1991, Take Pride’s mission is to “inspire community pride, raise public awareness and promote citizen responsibility in making the city of Winnipeg clean and beautiful.”

Take Pride has a number of programs working toward that mission, including the Green Wave team, a graffiti-removal crew, and the Snow Angels, who help seniors in need during the winter months.

Take Pride puts a big focus on the detritus that dots the streets, especially in spring. Last week, they kicked off their 2019 Team Up to Clean Up initiative at Grant Park Shopping Centre with a number of festivities, including a recycled clothing fashion show.

Team Up to Clean Up challenges community groups, businesses, and schools to get down and dirty and clean up their neighbourhoods, then post pictures to Twitter with the hashtag #CleanCanadaTogether to show the difference a collective effort can make.

Ethans hopes to see 20,000 people participate provincewide this year.

Take Pride will provide supplies such as garbage bags, plastic gloves and litter pickers to any group that registers their cleanup effort through takepride.mb.ca.

Targeting schools and teaching young people to be good citizens is key, Ethans says.

“It’s paramount to get the young people to see how they can make a difference and how they can then bring that up to their parents and to adults,” Ethans says.

“Students we go to schools and see, I love the fact that they really care and that they want to be part of the solution… Schools are getting it and they’re bringing the message back to the adults.”

Last year, 156 Manitoba schools participated in Take Pride’s “Bag Up Manitoba” program, collecting 886,000 plastic bags that were then recycled rather than thrown away.

Every year, Take Pride issues a Litter Index, which ranks Winnipeg neighbourhoods based on how much trash each area has from a scale of one (no trash) to four (tons of trash).

The 2019 Index, released April 8, shows Winnipeg is dirtier than last year, with the average score rising to 2.24 from 2.17.

The highest score of 2.63 went to the West End, with the worst streets being Maryland and Sherbrook avenues and Empress Street. Those streets were among the 20 citywide classified as fours.

“You drive up and down these streets and you see the amount of litter; it’s going to take several people a long time to pick up that litter,” Ethans says. “If I have 25 people out on a Saturday to clean (between) Ellice and Sargent on Empress, it will take them an hour and a half and they might not get it all clean.”

The higher Index number was partially due to this past winter’s early start, Ethans explains — once the snow flies and the cold arrives, community cleanups freeze up.

There’s one group, however, not deterred by winter’s wrath: the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ’s Enviro Team. The team hits the streets every day regardless of conditions to keep downtown neat and tidy.

In January and February alone, the Enviro Team, comprised of 16 full-time members (more come this summer), picked up 8,152 pails of litter.

Having downtown looking slick is “huge” for the BIZ, says Steve Hughes, the BIZ’s manager of cleanliness, maintenance and placemaking.

“It’s that first appearance, it’s that first initial view, that anybody coming to a Jets game, or to a concert, or whatever, that they see,” Hughes says.

“Spring is always quite a shock to us because you never see everything that’s buried in the snow.”

One big issue downtown is unlocked BFI bins, Hughes says. People rifle through them and leave the lids open, and since Winnipeg often gets gusty, “it drags everything out of the garbage cans” and onto the streets, Hughes says. The BIZ is working with its members and the city to ensure bins stay locked.

The most insidious litter is cigarette butts, Ethans says. People often discard them without much thought, rationalizing that they are tiny. However, they add up: butts make up 35 per cent of Winnipeg’s litter, take years to biodegrade, and have many harmful effects.

“They don’t understand that cigarette butts are poisonous to our animals, they don’t understand that cigarette butts end up in our sewer system, going into our rivers and lakes, killing our wildlife,” Ethans says of those who don’t butt-out properly.

“The cool thing to do in the movies was to have your cigarette and then throw it on the ground and stomp it,” Ethans says, making a flicking motion á la Peter Greene in The Usual Suspects.

“That was the cool thing to do — back then. Now it shouldn’t be. Now I’d love to see the movies where a guy’s got a cigarette and he actually puts it in the ashtray instead of throw it on the ground.”

The BIZ’s Enviro Team picks up 125 cigarette butts on every city block, every day, according to its website.

The Downtown BIZ offers a butt receptacle program, cost-shared by participating businesses, that allows smokers a convenient way to dispose of their butts.

Hughes says people will use receptacles if they are accessible, but if there isn’t one around, they’ll think nothing of flicking their butts on the sidewalk.

“Smoking is a big thing downtown, everybody does it,” Hughes says. “It would be nice if a lot more people would use the butt receptacles and put things away.”

Like Take Pride, the BIZ offers opportunities for citizens to get involved in cleaning up the core. Their long-standing annual Earth Day Cleanup takes place April 29 (registration closes April 25).

“It makes a huge difference,” Hughes says of the Earth Day efforts. “Just the amount of weight of garbage we can pick up, and the people that come out, they love it. They love the fact they’re doing something to help the community, to help the downtown. We have people from all walks of life come and join.”

The Enviro Team focuses on the main streets and gathering spots, but “there’s an awful lot of the back lanes that definitely need a lot more attention,” Hughes says.

“It’s great. It’s good for the community to actually see what we do and it’s a really good day,” he says.

Even if one doesn’t participate in an organized cleanup operation, every Winnipegger can be a part of the solution every day, Ethans says.

“No. 1 — don’t litter. No. 2 — stop and pick up a piece of litter every day,” he says. “750,00 people live in Winnipeg. That’s 750,000 pieces of litter off the street every day.”

“It doesn’t take more than three seconds to pick up a piece of litter and put it away properly. It’s everybody working together to make our city, and our province, clean and beautiful.”