'It's a mess', volunteers say as thaw reveals city park and river garbage

The recent warm spell is giving Londoners a look at a familiar spring eyesore along city roadsides, riverbanks, in parks, and near public pathways—garbage. 

Trash and litter, including coffee cups, plastic containers, glass bottles, construction materials, and used drug paraphernalia, have accumulated over the winter, and buried until this week.

“With the snow melting, the city typically sees an increase in debris along the river and in park areas,” including general litter and garbage associated with encampments, city spokesperson Carmen Mallia said in an email.

While the sight of post-thaw refuse isn’t unusual, this winter’s early and abundant snowfall, coupled with a prolonged deep freeze, hindered cleanup, the city said. Rising water levels in the river have also posed a challenge.

“The city’s Coordinated Informed Response team is supporting cleanup activity and working with people living in encampments to address any health and safety concerns. Parks and Forestry crews will also be out in parks collecting debris, with staff capacity increasing as the arena season winds down,” Mallia said.

The spokesperson added that some public garbage trash bins in parks are temporarily removed during the winter and are reinstalled as parks reopen for the season.

“I think it's been a major issue for many years, and people are becoming more and more concerned,” Tom Cull said. He's a community partner specialist at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority and founder and former director of Antler River Rally.

“Microplastics, for example, are a huge problem in our environment ... and a big percentage of that comes from macroplastics that are garbage or litter that are then breaking down and finding their way into our waterways,” said Cull, adding that it's a growing problem.

Only about 10 per cent of plastics made are recyclable, Cull said, and even then, he wonders how much of that 10 per cent are properly recycled.

“If you think about our recycling that goes out every night, when wind blows over our recycling bins, when garbage transfer stations don't have lids put on them appropriately, when folks are deciding to dump garbage illegally ... this all adds up,” he said.

There are several community initiatives aimed at collecting this misplaced garbage, Cull said, including his former Antler River Rally—now with the London Environmental Network—which holds regular cleanups in hotspot area.

The Thames River Cleanup, which is now in its 27th year, is also held in April around Earth Day, drawing as many as 2,000 volunteers.

“It's a mess. We had a very severe winter,” founder Todd Sleeper said of the current situation.

When the Thames River Cleanup first began in 2000, Sleeper says some of the garbage they found included trucks, steel, tires, and appliances. Twenty-seven years later, roughly 90 per cent is plastics.