Tag: capital city clean up

Capital City Clean Up – 15 to Clean Challenge!

Now that the snow has melted, litter is once again visible on our streets and sidewalks. That means it’s time for a big push by Capital City Clean Up (CCCU), the City of Edmonton’s year-round litter and graffiti management program.

On Wednesday, Mayor Mandel kicked off the latest CCCU initiative, called the 15 to Clean Challenge:

“The responsibility for keeping our city clean is shared by all of us. If we all took 15 minutes to clean up litter or wipe out graffiti, imagine how much of a difference we could make together,” said Mayor Stephen Mandel. “Edmontonians take pride in their city and show it by participating in events like this.”

Participating in the challenge is easy. Just take 15 minutes to pick up some litter or call 311 to report graffiti. Challenge your friends and co-workers and go as a group! When you’re done, log your clean up activities online (you have until May 16 to do so).


Photos by Raffaella Loro (see more here)

I took part in a clean up group last year and had lots of fun! Last year was a great year for CCCU. Here is 2009 by-the-numbers:

  • 4758 – Adopt-a-Block Team Members recruited
  • 11588 – bags of Adopt-a-Block trash collected
  • 246 – litter tickets issued
  • 11160 – hours volunteered collecting litter
  • 13158 – square meters of graffiti painted/cleaned (141628 square feet)
  • 546 – graffiti wipeout volunteers
  • 266 – graffiti wipeout kits issued
  • 3276 – Graffiti Clean Up volunteer hours
  • 98 – graffiti tickets issued
  • 27 – CCCU program partners
  • 6458 – bags of trash collected during River Valley Clean Up
  • 7319 – volunteer hours for River Valley Clean Up

River Valley Clean Up kicks off next week (on ShareEdmonton) – you can learn more here. If you’d like to Adopt-a-Block, you can do so here.

Fifteen minutes is all it takes! Get out and help to clean up Edmonton!

Cleaning up Edmonton

Now that the snow is gone, the amount of garbage that accumulated on streets and sidewalks throughout the winter is becoming quite noticeable. The City of Edmonton has two primary initiatives to help clean up all of the trash – Capital City Clean Up, a year-round program that encourages civic engagement, and the River Valley Clean Up, a one-day event to give the river valley a spring cleaning.

Today I helped to clean up a small area in the Oliver community (I live on the west side of Oliver). Organized by @CaryWilliams, a block captain in the Capital City Clean Up program, about eleven of us participated: @jdarrah, @bingofuel, @thespindoctor, @stuporstar, @out_inc, @mastermaq, @jodiegiese, @sirthinks, @zoomjer, and Alanna (who I don’t think is on Twitter).

#yegcleanup#yegcleanup

We tackled the area bounded by 104th and 102nd avenues, and 112th and 114th streets. Here are a few observations from the clean up:

  • Not a surprise I guess, but there was a ton of cigarette-related garbage: butts, papers, and even empty packages. We couldn’t pick up all the cigarette butts or we’d have been there for weeks, but we did our best.
  • There was definitely a lot of Tim Horton’s garbage: cups and wrappers, but mostly lids, and tabs from the lids.
  • There have been a number of new condo and apartment buildings erected in the area in the last year or two, which means there was some construction-related trash. I was amazed how much yellow styrofoam there was!
  • We found three dead birds in total, two magpies and a pigeon.
  • And some good news: only one condom and no needles.

Everyone did a great job and nearly filled an entire bag of garbage, but the superstar today was definitely Jason:

#yegcleanup

He did an incredibly thorough job and filled three bags! He also seemed to find the most interesting trash, as you can see in the photo.

Many of us plan for a spring cleaning in our homes and businesses, but let’s not forget that our communities need to be cleaned up also! It doesn’t take very much time or effort, but it makes a big difference. You can learn more about the Adopt-A-Block program here.