The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup in White Rock

WWF Canada
From https://vancouverplumber.posterous.com
I spread the word through various social media outlets, tweeting and posting the event on Facebook. I also tweeted various media outlets, such as the Vancouver Sun, The Province, Peace Arch News, News 1130… hopefully they got my tweets and promoted the event as well.
Our favorite recording artist Bif Naked helped by retweeting our cause. So did our favorite radio show host Kid Carson ! We also had tweets from our fellow twitter/facebook followers wishing us luck ! This alone made us happy as in our own way we are bringing awareness to this cause.
The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is an annual event hosted by the WWF and the Vancouver Aquarium.
Their mission is to promote understanding and education about shoreline litter issues by encouraging Canadians to rehabilitate shoreline areas through cleanups.
Their vision is a fully engaged and committed Canadian public keeping all Canadian shorelines free from litter.
In 2010, the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup celebrated its 17th anniversary with 47,027 registrants nationwide.
Shoreline litter has an impact on wildlife, our ecosystems and on people. You can read more about the impacts here: Impacts of Shoreline Litter
We wanted to help this worthy cause and so signed up to be site coordinators for Coldicutt Trail in White Rock. Though our site did not attract the crowd like Kits Beach would have, we still had a turn out for that rainy day ! I brought 2 of our apprentices: Papa Gordon and Papa Darshan, and 2 White Rock residents who saw the cause on Facebook also joined in: Sandy and Don Nelson.
Oh yes and the rain did stop just in time for our clean-up !
It is a fair hike down the shoreline and because of this I wasn’t expecting that much garbage to be down there.

(c) Papa Plumbing

Well we were sure in for a surprise !! I had to send Papa Darshan up for more garbage bags ! As we walked the shores, we found garbage everywhere !
At the top of the trail is this rock.. I am not sure how Mr Coldicutt would feel about all the garbage that is polluting the park, after all he donated it for the enjoyment of the residents NOT for it to be a garbage dump !

We covered a distance of approximately 2.2 kms. Here is a list of what we found:

Plastic Bags: 11
Balloons: 6
Beverage Bottles: 4
Beverage Cans: 17
Caps/Lids: 11
Clothing,Shoes: 6
Cutlery/Plates: 7
Food Wrappers/Containers: 8
Pull Tabs: 1
A huge pile of residential garbage
Rope: 3 ropes – 10 foot , 4 foot, 7 foot
Bait Container: 1
Buoys/Floats: 1
Crab Trap: 1
Fishing Line: 3
Strapping Bands: 1
Tobacco Packaging/Wrappers: 6
Cigarette Lighters: 1
Car/Car Parts: 2 ( truck spark plug wire, car seat)
Can of Butane
Pet excrement in Bag
Freezer Door
Length of ABS plumbing pipe
1 Dead seagull in plastic bag
1 Dead Jellyfish in plastic bag
1 Sony Walkman with headphones

We were all in disbelief when we saw the pile of residential garbage. Clearly someone went through a great deal of effort to get it there. We were not cleaning a walking trail, it was a rocky shoreline. Perhaps it could have also been a boat who dumped it.
We filled up 6 contractor size bags each.
Bag 1: 26 lbs
Bag 2: 35 lbs
Bag 3: 37 lbs
Bag 4: 26 lbs
Bag 5: 28 lbs
Bag 6 + plumbing pipe: 19 lbs
TOTAL: 171 lbs over approximately 2.2 kms of shoreline
Now our friends Sandy and Don took up their bag that they collected – 26 lbs – I have no idea how they hiked up with that bag ! Awesome job Sandy and Don !!

We ended up taking the bags one by one down to Marine Drive where we brought the Papa van.

It felt like quite the trek with those heavy bags on our backs  – Papa never backs down from a challenge ! We sure did feel good when we were done !!
We had lunch at The BoatHouse and learning what we did for the Shorelines, the manager Colby gave us a great deal on our lunch.. that was so nice of him and his staff !! The staff was also very proud of us !

I had the vegetarian linguini.. it was so delicious !!

Special Thanks to The Home Depot on Scott Road/72nd Ave in Surrey for donating our clean up supplies. They graciously gave canvas gloves and contractor bags.
It was a very rewarding experiences for us and we are definitely looking forward to next year !!
Here is a link to the City of White Rock’s website about garbage collection and you can call them with any questions: Municipal Operations Department 604-541-2181
Lets keep our shorelines clean and litter free !! Thank you to all the volunteers and Thank you to Papa Darshan, Papa Gordon, Sandy Nelson, and Don Nelson for making our clean-up extra special !!