Spring melt revealing loads of litter in city

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This article was published 04/04/2022 (997 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TOM Ethans drove around the south end of Winnipeg in a red minivan Monday, rating the trash he spotted on the streets and boulevards on a scale of one to four.

One indicates no litter and four indicates a major garbage problem, the Take Pride Winnipeg executive director said, allowing the non-profit to plan its attack when organizing spring/summer volunteer cleanup crews.

“When we get individuals and groups to go out and do litter clean-ups, we want to send them to where they’re actually going to get a benefit out of helping,” Ethans said.

Winnipeg’s remaining snow banks continue to conceal trash, causing the group to initially delay its two-week survey of roughly 500 kilometres of city streets. Last year, it held its informal survey in mid-March.

“This time of year, there’s litter on almost every street,” Ethans said. “I’m sad to see how much litter is out there right now.”

On Sunday, Point Douglas residents held a community cleanup in partnership with the Mama Bear Clan volunteer patrol to clear out garbage from abandoned encampments along the banks of the Red River.

Icy conditions posed a challenge for volunteers, as some items were frozen to the ground, but the roughly two dozen individuals persevered and collected a trailer and a truck bed full of trash.

“It was really heartening,” said Howard Warren, chairman for the Point Douglas Residents Committee’s trails subcommittee.

The 60-year-old retiree said while volunteers made a dent in the trash along the Red River near the Disraeli Bridge, the banks are home to abandoned encampments all the way north to St. John’s Park.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg, what we did yesterday,” Warren said, adding residents committee has another clean-up planned for April 30 at 11 a.m. at Michaëlle Jean Park.

“If the city is not going to do (it), I guess it falls on us… We get to the level where we say: enough is enough. Who wants to live in a garbage dump?”

Warren, a longtime Point Douglas resident, describes the neighbourhood issue as both an “eyesore” and a public safety hazard. On Sunday, the volunteers collected about 70 used needles, he said.

The neighbourhood litter problem is a symptom of the greater issue of homelessness in Winnipeg, Warren added.

“You have three choices, as far as I can see, when it comes to homelessness: you can criminalize it; you can try and ignore it, which is what I see us in the current status quo as doing as a society; or you can try and engender the political will to solve it.”

Litter doesn’t only plague central, mature city neighbourhoods, Ethans said, and his Monday survey of areas near the Brady Road landfill confirmed as much.

Soft white plastics, styrofoam, and fast food packaging sat snagged in brush along ditches and fields near Kenaston Boulevard and the Trans-Canada Highway — an easy ‘four’ in Ethans’ view.

Ethans, who’s been with Take Pride Winnipeg for 25 years, said he’s seen a slight rise in the amount of garbage on Winnipeg streets since the COVID-19 pandemic began two years ago (particularly disposable masks).

Meanwhile, volunteer numbers have declined due to public safety precautions. Take Pride Winnipeg hopes to see its volunteer base safely return to pre-pandemic levels this year, he said.

Before COVID hit the province, roughly 20,000 people from schools, church groups, businesses and community events attended clean-ups it facilitated or supplied bags and tools for each year.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca