Monday marked the 49th annual Earth Day celebrated around the world. Here in Calgary, the Plastic-Free YYC was pleased to host several cleanups throughout the city.  Our annual spring cleanups brought out many passionate, earth-lovers to help clean up our streets and our parks of unsightly and damaging litter.

Amy Park led a cleanup in Edworthy Park and her group was quite impressed to see that this area was not too littered. However, the team was still able to collect a good amount of trash found stuck in trees and brush and slowly making its way to the river.  

April led her group of passionate Earth dweller’s in a clean up throughout the Inglewood community. They focused on the streets and roads that lead to the parks and eventually to the river. “It’s amazing how impactful it is to see all this trash that many of us view as ‘recyclable’ and yet it is being found on the ground. Cleanups like this are a good motivator for people that ditch single-use all together. We found a lot of Styrofoam!”

Briana and a small group had a great time on St’ Patrick’s Island “detail cleaning” all the cigarette butts and tiny candy wrappers blown about from the parking lots. And, Isabelle and Diana from Yoga Seva, made their way across Tom Campbell’s natural area, picking up bags and other unsightly garbage.

Our teams are thankful for the encouragement or passerbys waving or honking their horns in praise. We do hope that in seeing others cleaning up our streets this passer-bys will be inspired to clean up their own backyards.

All-in-all our cleanups were a success simply because we got out, and we picked up some trash knowing no matter how small it makes a difference.  If you missed our cleanups, never fear there’s always some litter that needs to be picked up somewhere, even if it’s on your way to work or school, or simply blown across your front yard.  You too can make a difference! Stay tuned for more cleanups throughout the year and check out all of our events on our event page.