Littering issue must be addressed

On April 13, Easter Monday, the Katimavik group located in Orléans set out for an afternoon cleanup of the creek behind their house. After arriving in Orléans on April 1, two members from this group went for a walk to take in their new community where they would be living and working for the next three months. Seeing the amount of garbage around Bilberry Creek and Yves Richer Park, these group members, Anna Jessop and Alexe Godbout, brought this to their group’s attention and suggested that they do a cleanup of the area.

What they found was more than normal trash. The group filled a total of 12 garbage bags and discovered a river bank that they at first thought was an old landfill. After a break, they returned to the site, located at the entrance of the Yves Richer Park, and uncovered insulation, old bottles, old pipes and shingles, among other things. Our first attempt at cleaning this area just uncovered more and more garbage. We became overwhelmed at the amount of sheer stuff we were pulling out of the ground and realized that this required more help than our group of 12 could give.

As new and temporary citizens of Orléans, we were shocked to find something like this existing in such a beautiful community. As participants of Katimavik, a nation-wide youth volunteer program, we support and promote environmental consciousness and how to live with the smallest carbon footprint possible. Combining these two together, we are hoping to bring this mess to the community’s attention and hope to see some action started before our short stay here is over.

Alex Hanam