By Rhythm Rathi
BELLEVILLE – If you live in Hastings or Prince Edward counties, a 10-minute walk from your home will probably be an eye-opener about how big a litter problem we have.
The amount of roadside garbage in urban and rural areas is increasing day by day.
“I am deeply troubled by the fact that people (who litter) have no care and concern for other people in the world,” Tweed Coun. James Flieler told QNet News this week. “And those people who don’t care are willing to put the health of the rest of the world in jeopardy.”
Both his municipal council and the residents of Tweed are concerned about the problem, Flieler said, but there are renegades who continue to throw trash out on the road.
In Tweed, like many other area municipalities, there is an annual spring trash bash event in which volunteers clean up garbage along roadsides and in ditches.
It’s the Kiwanis Club that has been organizing the event in Tweed for almost 15 years, and Flieler always takes part.
“My wife and I pluck garbage on up to 12 kilometres of roads every year. We try to (do) our part,” he said.
Lori Borthwick of Belleville, president of the Bay of Quinte Green Party of Ontario, noted that the plastic that makes up a large part of roadside garbage is broken down by natural elements like heat, water and air, and then enters the bodies of humans and wildlife in the form of minute particles.
“We are breathing in microplastic, we are drinking microplastic and we are eating microplastic,” she said.
Flieler said that unsecured loads being taken to the municipal dump are one of the reasons for trash on the roads: “The thing that really bewilders me is people go to the waste site, things will blow out of their trailer, and on their way home they see their own garbage on the edge of the roads, but they won’t stop and pick it up.”
One way excess garbage can be reduced is to compost, Flieler said, noting that a proposal has come before Tweed council for a pilot project to have residents use small in-home food composters. Flieler has already purchased the product and has been actively using it.
“I have got 60 pounds of composted material that I can use in my garden. It works on a 10-to-one ratio. Otherwise, I would have had 600 pounds of compostable material that I would have taken to the waste site,” he said.
Rachelle Hardesty, Tweed’s manager of community development and parks and recreation, said there was no trash bash last year due to COVID-19, but the municipality will go ahead with it this year as there is a tremendous need to clean up the garbage accumulated over two years.
“It is really disappointing to see large garbage bags that are in the ditch,” she said.
The volunteers for the trash bash include a large number of young people, she said.
Why do people still litter despite the awareness that’s spread through such events? Hardesty said she doesn’t know.
She mentioned an incident when she and her kids cleaned up the road near their house in a trash bash event. “Less than an hour later … there were cups and garbage on the side of the road that were thrown out within that hour.”
Quinte Conservation runs educational programs in schools to spread awareness about environmental issues, Hardesty said, adding that young people are very environmentally aware.
She is proposing an initiative to Tweed council called Love Where You Live, she said. It includes having volunteers adopt a street and “you are responsible to keep that area clean,” she explained.
She’s hoping the initiative can start next year so there will be a year-round trash bash, she added.
Further south in Hastings County, the Quinte Trash Bash covers Quinte West, Belleville, Tyendinaga Township, the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Prince Edward County and Batawa. Nick Ogden, communications assistant for Quinte West, is also the media contact for the 2021 Quinte Trash Bash, which is scheduled for May 8.
“We all share the same world,” Ogden told QNet News. “The best way to keep it in the best shape possible for our future is to keep it clean and to do our part.
“We all produce a certain level of garbage … and we all have a responsibility to dispose it in the proper way. And throwing your garbage out of your windows while you are driving, or dumping it in the more rural areas of your city, just isn’t the right way to do it.”
Quinte West’s slogan and logo are all about it being “a natural attraction,” Ogden noted.
“We say that proudly because it is a very beautiful and scenic part of Ontario.”
But when people throw their garbage on the roadsides, he said, it deters “from the natural attraction that Quinte West is proud to support and to boast.”
It might be your neighbour who’s dumping trash in rural areas – and if so, and if they see you cleaning it up, it will set an example for them, Ogden said.
“Participating in the trash bash is a way of leading by example.”
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