First of all, we would like to say thank you to everyone who took part in the 2009 TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, we truly could not do this without the support of people like you from across Canada.
Glenbourn Belchers March (Halifax, NS)
Next, I would like to say that over the last year, we’ve been neglect in keeping this blog up to date and I’d like to apologize for this oversight. In 2009, we had been experimenting with new ways to support our site coordinators, other forms of social media and working with new ideas for events around shoreline litter and marine debris.
This year, our goal for this blog is to continue our original goal to scour the internet to find and compile interesting stories on shoreline litter, marine debris and shoreline cleanups. We will do a brief recap of 2009 over the next few months interspersed between new and current items which you may find inspiring.
In the meantime, as we’re working furtively away to get the final report ready by February, here are some interesting stats from 2009.
- 56,916 Canadians registered to cleanup 1,568 sites.
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Kitsilano Beach (Vancouver, BC) [Photo Courtesy of Kevin Jamieson, Cycle Studios
Once the dust settled and data collection ended in October, some of the top items removed from shorelines across Canada were:
- Food wrappers & Containers
- Cups, Plates, Forks, Knives & Spoons
- Straws & Stirrers
- Caps & Lids
- Plastic bottles
- Glass bottles
- Beverage cans
- Plastic bags
- Paper bags
- Cigarette butts
- Cigar Tips
- Tobacco packaging & Wrappers
- hair extensions
- Star Wars Light Saber
- plastic dinosaur
- Flintstones boxers
- curling iron
- refrigerator door
- desk
- mannequin dressed in a bathing suit
- leopard frog in a bottle (alive)
- message in a bottle, with the message ironically being: “PLEASE DON’T LITTER!”
