April Blooms

Dundas Centennial Park and the bloomin’ cherry trees from Japan! After a 3 hour kayak cleanup along Spencer Creek and the Cootes’ West Pond and Canal.

Earlier dates in April, including a wild ride down Spencer Creek during the spring freshet–no time (or skill!) to stop and pluck detritus from the banks!

Why so much garbage, week after week?  Mainly, an attitude adopted by many and society in general–there is no monetary value in “the commons”, so it ain’t my problem.

Other causes, in my opinion:

• garbage cans in parks–these are inevitably tipped over and spilled, due to wildlife, wind, or adolescent pranking–so get rid of them (pack out what you pack in);
• household garbage and blue box collection–wind-blown and wildlife-strewn, not to mention leftovers from the collectors–so at least change the “boxes” to wildlife-proof and wind-proof containers;
• dumping by those individuals and companies (such as construction and contractors) who think they are paying too much tax and don’t want to pay extra for their surplus garbage disposal (at the local transfer station);
• ignorance, attitude and stupidity by those who let “stuff” in their open pick-up beds “disappear” as they speed down the road
• ditto for those who willfully “dispose” of anything they can’t be bothered to collect for proper disposal, by chucking it out their vehicle windows (cigarette butts, coffee cups, you name it!);
• illegal sanitary sewer cross-connections to storm sewers, from legacy infrastructure no longer grandfathered or willful action;
• companies who let their “backyard” dumpsters overfill and get blown around, to save a buck in disposal fees;
• companies who neglect to clean up their property regularly, such as from their parking lots (see above re. individuals), and let the garbage make its way to the local watercourse with the stormwater.

​The fact of so much garbage in our waterways, making its way from our farms fields, roadways, pathways, streets–everywhere–is systemic of the malaise of our society.  We know what the problems are, but we can’t seem to be able to change our “system”, mostly because our governance systems are now beholden to corporate influence–the same corporate system created by politicians a 100 years ago!  And these “entities” that the courts have declared are “people” have no obligation to consider the “commons” as an “externality” that must be factored in to their bottom line, while they can dissolve themselves whenever they face these costs (requiring the “public” to pay the clean up tab of their bankruptcy)–in fact, their only obligation is to their shareholders and their “bottom line”.
It is a mixed up system, and we need to fix it.

Blog Post Courtesy of Neal Bonnor. For more posts like this, visit https://cleaningbykayak.wordpress.com/!