The rain didn’t hamper Earth Day cleanup efforts in Orillia on Saturday.
Green Orillia hosted its third annual Earth Day cleanup, based out of Couchiching Beach Park. Madeleine Fournier, who started organizing the cleanups in the fall of 2020, says the effort brings the community together for an important cause.
“It’s a great event to get anyone who is interested in the environment out to build connections and build the community,” she said. “I didn’t expect anyone to come today because of the weather, but we had around 50 people.”
She says Earth Day presents a special opportunity.
“Especially in this time of climate crisis, this is a day to draw attention to the multiple crises we are facing,” she said. “It’s a day where we can all try to do something, educate ourselves, and connect with each other to build community.”
While Fournier sees cleaning up garbage as a sort of Band-Aid solution to a more complex global problem of waste, she says people can also help make a difference by advocating all levels of government to make urgent policy changes.
“We need to work toward a polluter-pays model,” she said. “We need long-term, strategic, zero-waste plan strategies from municipalities, the province, and the federal government.”
She says the responsibility for waste shouldn’t only be on individuals.
“We need to tackle it at the source and move to a zero-waste society,” she said.
Cliff Perry, a member of the City of Orillia waste management advisory committee, was pleased to see people of various ages attending the event Saturday morning.
“It’s a little thing that everybody can do,” he said. “It’s symbolic of the whole mission.”
Perry, who was raised in a zero-waste household, feels fortunate to be an environmentally minded person.
“My parents were war people,” he explained. “They saved all resources; there was no such thing as waste.”
Local naturalist Bob Bowles was doing his part Saturday in Scout Valley, where he was picking up garbage. He says Earth Day gives people a chance to give back.
“The earth is wonderful,” he said. “Before (Samuel) de Champlain came in 1615, we had the Wendat First Nations people here. They really helped the environment; they used everything they killed, and they gave thanks when they did it.”
Now, Bowles believes people have taken the environment for granted.
“Our health and education are talked about as important,” he said. “Our health and education are tied to the environment.”
Bowles, 78, says the next generation is at risk of seeing a lot of changes in the environment, which makes it important to try to engage the public through initiatives such as Earth Day.
“We really need to be aware of the natural environment right now,” he said. “With climate change, we are getting more storms and we are going to get great flooding here in this area. We are already starting to see it.”
