On April 11, London kicked off the annual launch of the Clean and Green campaign.
This campaign is designed to unite communities and businesses in the city in order to promote litter prevention, community clean-ups, as well as environmental projects.
This will be the twenty-eighth year that London has held the campaign, first getting its start in 1996.
Plenty of people attended the event including various volunteers, city officials and staff, as well as London’s own mayor, Josh Morgan.
“When I think about litter in our city, I think about the amazing people who are going to go out over the next 10 days and who go out year long to help pick that (litter) up,” said Morgan..
“ I also think about those who are dropping it, those who are putting it on the ground, those who aren’t recycling or using waste receptacles and those who are causing harm to our environment.”
Morgan went on to talk about the impact of the event on the city as well as told his own story about his kids and their focus on environmentalism.
“My son Max, who just turned 7, had a yogurt and threw it in the garbage, a recyclable yogurt container. My daughter McKenna lectured him for it. Basically said, ‘Max, that’s recyclable.’ She went, pulled it out of the garbage, rinsed it out, and put it in the recycling.”
Others in attendance of the event include Dean Sheppard, the Executive Director of ReForest London, Marianne Griffith, the Executive Director of the London Environment Network, as well as Jay Stanford, the Director of climate change, environment, and waste management for the city of London.
Stanford hosted the event as well as spoke about some of the larger harms facing London when it comes to litter.
“Over the last couple years, there’s been a number of technical studies done in the US primarily that talk about litter, the problems of litter, and the impact on communities. It’s actually disgusting what you read,” said Stanford.
“That research has allowed us to narrow down a couple things. We’ve kind of known this in London, what do we pick up most? It’s sad, but it’s cigarette filters, cigarette butts. They’re everywhere, that is the number one problem in all municipalities across North America. We have to get a handle on that because that isn’t always the most visible form of litter.”
Recalling back to his story, Mayor Morgan spoke about how things could change if more people acted with a more environmental perspective.
“If that’s the kind of attitude, if that‘s the kids holding each other to account, if that happens in each and every household across the city, then one day we won’t have to do ‘Clean and Green’ to the level that we have because we’ll have changed people’s perspective on how to treat each other and the environment.”
The campaign runs through the rest of April with various events, contests, and clean-ups scheduled throughout. For more information, head to getinvolved.london.ca.
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