Volunteers from Rotary Daybreak, Lantzville, Nanaimo, Nanaimo North, and Oceanside all teamed up for one big clean on Saturday, April 23, 2022. (Rebecca Taylor)

By Jordan Davidson

team effort

Earth Day-inspired Rotary clubs gather nearly a ton of garbage across Nanaimo

Apr 23, 2022 | 5:14 PM

NANAIMO —The city is a lot lighter and cleaner following a belated Earth Day initiative by local Rotary clubs.

Multiple groups from the mid-Island joined forces on Saturday, April 23, to pick up the 920 kilograms worth of litter in honour of Earth Day, which was the previous day.

Rebecca Taylor, board member with the Rotary Club of Nanaimo, said one of their Rotary clubs does a clean up every two weeks, but they wanted to do something bigger for last Friday’s Earth Day.

“We wanted to do something together as a group. We have five clubs, four in Nanaimo and one in Lantzville, and with Earth Day it just made sense to do something like this trash pick up.”

The five clubs spread out around Nanaimo to 20 different locations including the grassy and tree-lined area around the visitors centre kiosk on the Nanaimo Parkway at Northfield Rd.

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Taylor told NanaimoNewsNOW Rotary clubs across the Island are doing various Earth Day activities, and garbage clean-up is one of the most tangible ways to make an immediate impact.

“One of the taglines for Rotary is ‘people of action’ so it’s really a way for us to get out in the community and help make our environment a little better and help clean up some of our favourite areas in Nanaimo.”

It took 70 volunteers about 90 minutes to clean up a lot of unnecessary trash. (Rebecca Taylor)

Site organizer for Rotary Club of Nanaimo Daybreak Jill Mont said fast-food containers and cigarette butts continue to be the most common items picked up during these cleanups.

This year, they also found plenty of masks, a vacuum cleaner, a microwave, a couch, and a mattress.

“It’s kind of tragic because [cigarette butts] are actually really hard to pick up, and yet they are one of the most damaging things that are hitting the ground. And they don’t disintegrate.”

Last year, a similar cleanup removed half of an old rusted car from the wooded area near the Northfield Rd. information kiosk along the Parkway.

Mont said she’s out every other week doing a cleanup somewhere in the city, and it doesn’t take long for a single volunteer to fill their garbage bags.

“We average about 15 pounds per bag and a bag per person. Last week, six of us took 95 kilograms out of the Chase River Estuary in one hour.”

Garbage collected was brought back to the kiosk parking lot, where it was then taken to the landfill by City of Nanaimo crews.

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jordan@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @JordanDHeyNow