20 Sep A Dozen Cart Wipes Found During Shoreline Cleanup
September 17th Cleanup Recap
On September 7th, volunteers and FOLKSS staff did a shoreline clean up near Chahko Mika mall.
In a span of two hours, they filled a giant garbage bag with cigarette butts, cans, newspaper, food containers, food wrappers and more.
The most common item found was cart wipes from the grocery store.
Since the pandemic, the amount of sanitary and PPE waste has drastically increased and much of it washes up along Canada’s shorelines. As stated in the Great Canadian Shorelines Cleanup’s annual “Dirty Dozen” 2020 report, volunteers removed 41,000 kilograms of litter from the Canadian coasts, much of which was COVID-19 related supplies. You can read this article and the report here.
While ensuring the health and safety of our community is critical, it’s important to dispose of sanitary products and PPE properly. When we throw these items on the ground, they eventually end up in local waterways. Not only do they pose a health risk to our community, but threaten Kootenay Lake and the species that call it home. Let’s keep our shorelines and lakes clean!
A special thanks to our funders Unsmoke Canada and The Great Outdoors Fund for supporting this event. A big thank you to our volunteers Erica and David for lending a hand to help clean up the shoreline.
