London will be cleaner and a whole lot greener by the end of the weekend.
Businesses and schools across the city took time Friday to tidy up around their properties in the 22 Minute London Makeover. Mayor Matt Brown and Clean and Green program volunteers joined students at Masonville Public School for the clean-up.
"This is our community and it is important not to litter, it's important to pick up litter when we see it," says Brown.
The 22 Minute Makeover came just one day ahead of the 21st annual Clean and Green Community Cleanup Day. The initiative asks Londoners to pick-up litter in their neighbourhoods
There are seven designated locations across the city for residents to pick up cleaning supplies, including garbage bags and gloves, and drop off litter they have collected.
Brown says it is amazing how much the intiative has grown since it began in 1996.
"Mike Smith and a few other Londoners banded together to clean up a neighbourhood and it's expanded across the city," says Brown. "In all, 42 neighbourhoods right across London, there will be programs, there will be people out participating in large clean-ups and then others will just go out by themselves and clean up their own street or park close to their home. It's really a phenomenal experience and I'm so pleased to see it grow each and every year."
Jay Stanford, director of environment, fleet and solid waste for the city led a team of volunteers in three clean-ups Friday and will be back out Saturday in the Oakridge area.
He says the amount of garbage that will be collected over the two days is staggering.
"Based on past years, we've been anywhere between 18 and 20 tonnes of litter," says Stanford. "That's small pieces of plastic, plastic bags, paper cups, odds and ends like that so it really is a lot of pieces of material that are picked up over a two to three day period."
After picking up trash for two days, Brown and dozens of families will head to St. Julien Park on Sunday for Earth Day London. The event hosted by the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority will see 1,500 trees and wildlife shrubs planted along the river corridor.
"We have about 4.4-million trees here in London, we're going to lose about 10% of that to the emerald ash borer and we want to do everything we can to plant trees," says Brown. We need people's help to do that. We can't just plant these trees on public property because essentially there isn't enough."
More information about London Clean and Green and Earth Day London can be found at www.londoncleangreen.ca or www.earthday.ca.