Picking up litter and keeping your community clean is a global responsibility and that was the philosophy of this year’s World Cleanup Day organizers in Cambridge long before they got the world involved.
“It started as the Hespeler Speed River Cleanup and I thought, why would we just do Hespeler,” said cleanup founder Sandy Forsyth. “We joined City Green and pitched them on doing the Cambridge Community Cleanup and here we are today, 26 years later.”
Attendance and involvement in the annual cleanup on or near Earth Day in April, grew steadily with each passing year until the COVID 19 pandemic forced them to cancel the annual event and lose corporate sponsors.
“The last year, pre-COVID, in Hespeler alone, we had 189 people come out and we had at least that in the other areas as well so, we had 500 or 600 people on the cleanup day,” said Forsyth. “We collected more than two tons of garbage and that’s only what we got logged in going to the site.”
There is no final tally in terms of tonnage collected this year, but there was a marked decline in participation after the two-year hiatus.
“We only had 13 people at the new location in Hespeler, 36 people at Riverside Park and 15 at Riverbluffs Park,” said Forsyth. “That’s a lot lower than previous years but it is still 60 more people than you would get on a normal Saturday picking up garbage in the community.”
Forsyth believes the pandemic has made people reluctant to get involved but moving the date to align with World Cleanup Day has also affected past participants sense of connection and familiarity to the event.
“We had a huge sponsorship from Tim Hortons in the past,” she said. “With COVID they’re not allowed to do anything so, we’ve missed two years and we are kind of off our schedule. Hopefully, next year we will be back to some sort of semblance of normal and be back to our normal day but we picked World Cleanup Day today and here we are encouraging as many people as we can to pick up garbage and make their city beautiful.”
Forsyth, her husband John, their children, and a close group of friends look forward to the cleanup each year and consider their partnership with the city a success.
She is hopeful that the annual event will get back on track next year and encourages people and groups who can’t take part in the Cambridge Community Cleanup to schedule their own effort.
“Some people can’t come out on the Saturday so they can call our liaison through Cambridge City Green, Paul Willms, and set up a cleanup on their own,” she said. “The supplies will all be sitting at the city for them. They pick up their garbage bags, their gloves and pickers and go do their own thing. As I said, we’ve had tremendous support. I’ve seen people come year after year. I recognize the faces. Maybe I don’t know all the names, but I recognize the faces.”
