If you don’t believe me, check out these numbers I came across on the Government of Canada’s website. I did the math myself.
If you started to walk the length of Canada’s coastlines from the Strait of Juan du Fuca on the West Coast to the Bay of Fundy on the east coast, covering 20 kilometres** a day at a moderate walking pace, you would complete your journey in approximately 33 years. That seems like a remarkably long time to cover the whole of Canada’s coastlines, especially when you compare it to how long it takes to cross the country on foot. At 5000 kilometres from coast to coast, you could walk across Canada in a little under a year. Then again, when you consider how many fjords, bays, inlets, and ice packs you’d have to cover along our country’s coastlines, 33 years sounds a little more believable. Now consider the time and effort it would take to keep these coastlines clean from human litter.
From September 18th to 26th, Canadians across the country will organize clean-ups along Canada’s ocean, lake and river shorelines in what is known as the Great Canadian Cleanup. Last year during the cleanup, organizers covered 2, 457 km and picked up a total of 160, 914 kg of trash.
Cigarette butts take the cake as the number one item picked up by organizers with over 367, 010 found on our country’s shores. Food wrappers, plastic bags, bottles and dishes follow as the next most popular litter items on the list.
As a program, the shoreline cleanup originated in Vancouver in 1994. Over the last 16 years, it’s grown to become national in scope. Over 1,000 different cleanup sites have been registered across the country. Another 600 sites and it will smash last year’s record-breaker of over 1,500 sites.
You can join a clean-up or organize one yourself. If you would like to read more about the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-up, visit their website here.
It’s time to clean house, gumboot-style.
**Gumboots may, in fact, slow you down. They’re known for their sexy good-looks and H2O protection, but they’re not the best at long distances.
(A similar version of this post also appears on TheBigWild.org. The Big Wild is an online partnership between Mountain Equipment Co-op and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. With the help of Canadians, it’s dedicated to protecting large areas of wilderness across the country.)