Churchill cleans up the community

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This article was published 18/06/2018 (2900 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At first glance, a single plastic straw among the downed branches on the banks of the Red River may only seem like a small environmental slight.

However, a group of youth from Riverview are showing how small actions like tossing a coffee cup or picking up a discarded wrapper, can add up considerably.

Earlier this month, over 100 students and teachers at Collège Churchill removed an estimated 8,000 pounds, or four one-ton trucks, worth of garbage and debris from the banks of the Red River.

The cleanup effort was part of the school’s 25-year tradition of trekking through the bush along the river to collect waste revealed by the spring melt. This year, the group of students in Grades 7 through 12 covered nearly four kilometres on the west bank between the Riverview Health Centre and the Norwood Bridge and hauled off hundreds of garbage bags.

Daryn Farrand is co-president of Les jeunes éco-civistes, College Churchill’s youth environmental club, and said along with year long recycling programs and wetland preservation initiatives, the club works to organize the annual cleanup.

“It’s something that’s close to home,” Farrand, 16, said. “It’s our riverbank. We go there every day, sometimes we eat lunch out there… so it’s nice to see it cleaned.”

Derek Sims, a physics and biology teacher at Churchill and supervisor of the environmental club, started the riverbank cleanup in 1992 as a way to address student concerns about pollution and global warming.

“Twenty-five years ago we started the environmental club and we found that in general there was so much talk of depressing environmental news coming out: habitat destruction, pollution, global warming,” Sims said. “We wanted to do something that was very hands on and very immediate.”

Of the 160 students in the French-immersion high school, 140 participated this year, Sims said — a remarkable level of engagement from the students.

It’s part of the club’s ongoing efforts to promote student responsibility for the community as a whole and demonstrate that a small effort can have a big impact in the long run, he explained.

“I wish every high school did something like this. When I walk on the other side of the river there’s garbage all over the place and people just walk past it,” Sims said.

“We take one step more and say why don’t we clean it up? It’s our neighbourhood.”  

Among the refuse pulled from the muck were the regular culprits: plastic bags, styrofoam, paper and plastic cups. Students also cleaned up a number of abandoned campsites along the banks, particularly north of Mulvey Avenue along the southwest transit way, and took dozens of wet blankets, tarps, houseware items, clothing, and candles to garbage bins.

Max Wiebe, the Grade 12 co-president of the environmental club, said unfortunately the volume of trash collected along the banks has remained consistent over the past five years.

“I’ve been in this community my whole life and to see all the litter, it’s not awesome to look at,” Wiebe, 16, said. “That no-mans land can look pretty nice if it’s not littered. So when we get the chance to help out, why not?”