Drivers honked their horns and a young girl shouted out a big “thank you” to the handful of people picking up garbage along a section of Laurentian Avenue in North Bay.
“When I hear that from a child, I’m thinking that child is not going to be littering. Maybe I had an opportunity to inspire somebody else,” said Hariett Madigan coordinator of Clean, Green, Beautiful North Bay.
“It means that they understand what we’re doing, that we’re trying to make our community a cleaner, healthier, stronger place.”
Saturday was the official kick off to the second annual Clean, Green Beautiful North Bay campaign.
People were encouraged to clean up around their neighbourhood or place of business.
“People have been calling for bags since March 12. I would deliver the bags because of COVID-19. We made 200 deliveries and that represents a few thousand people because there are teams going out and picking up, families mostly. They’re practicing social distancing of course,” said Madigan.
“It has just been phenomenal. I think we’re at something like 25-hundred bags. We had to order more bags. It has been an amazing multi-generational effort by the whole community. The kids, the teenagers are out, the millennials are out which I was so pleased about, and grandparents all out there trying to make a difference.”
In its first year, an estimated 10,000 people were engaged in the cleanup effort, with 370 plus teams registered.
“This year in one month we have 200 teams. Some of them are quite large. They ordered 250 bags. They’re a service club and going out in their own areas and cleaning up. We want to double our numbers from 10,000 to 20,000 and we believe we’re going to surpass that. Our goal is to change the culture of waste,” said Madigan.
“Littering isn’t healthy for us as a community. It causes pollution and pollution affects our immune system. If we want to be healthy and strong, we have to all be part of the solution. It means becoming a steward of your community.”
Jeannie McKee is one of those stewards.
“Maybe if people see us cleaning up, they’ll think twice about throwing their garbage out the window and take more pride in our city and just enjoy the beauty that we do have here. Just be more community minded.”
Armed with biodegradable bags and grip and grabs, Pippa Madigan and her 11-year-old daughter Fiona walk along the side of road picking up garbage.
“We found a lot of metal like bolts and pop cans,” said Fiona.
“It is nice to help the community out and it is nice to be able to see it looking cleaner, because whenever I walk you always see all this garbage and I always wish I could help.”
“I have found a lot of plastic bags,” added Pippa.
“I think this is something we can do to help our community and something we can do in keeping with social distancing. We go out as a family. We use gloves and grip and grabs. You don’t have to bend down when you use these, and we don’t have to touch anything with our hands either. I think it is a good way to give back to our community. We do our own street quite religiously. Now we have time to do other spots, so that’s nice.”
Free Clean, Green, Beautiful biodegradable bags are available to the community.
“There is an order form on Clean, Green, Beautiful North Bay the Facebook group page, and cleangreenbeautiful.com they can go there and order them as well. And then what we do is go out and we deliver them. Every time you order bags you’re registered as being involved,” said Madigan.
“We figure if our community is willing to come out and serve their community by picking up litter, then we can serve them too.”
The bags can be added to the regular garbage collection, without being counted as part of the garbage bag limit.
“Being a Clean, Green, Beautiful community is also about being a good neighbour. We’re entering Communities in Bloom next year 2021. We want to win that competition,” said Madigan.
“We’re going to be in competition with communities our size, and we want to move from provincial competitor to national.”
