The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup

On Tuesday, September 29, some of our alive team donned gloves, bags, and clipboards to take part in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup at a local riverside beach.

While there, the cleanup crew picked up trash left by visitors or washed up on the beach. The clipboards were used to identify and tally each and every piece of detritus so that results could later be submitted for inclusion in the Cleanup’s national data collection.

In 2014, more than 54,000 Canadians cleaned up 1,880 sites, covering a distance of 2,563 km, and picked up a total of 14,399 garbage bags of trash weighing 139,262 kg.

By far, the biggest culprit in the tally was and remains cigarettes, followed by food wrappers and beverage bottles and cans. In fact, more than 110,000 food wrappers and containers are removed every year, enough to buy takeout for every meal, every day, for the next 100 years. Bizarre shoreline finds include an Elvis costume, hair extensions, wedding dress, lava lamp, false teeth … and many more!

Presented by Loblaws Canada, the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is an annual conservation initiative of the Vancouver Aquarium and the World Wildlife Fund and one of the largest contributors to the International Coastal Cleanup.