THUNDER BAY— Eco Superior and the City of Thunder Bay kicked of the 29th annual Spring Up to Clean Up on Thursday.
Beginning the 1996, the annual event has gathered community members to make a difference city wide.
“It’s heartening to see how much our community cares about cleaning up our city and putting waste where it belongs,” said Kennedy Bucci, rethinking waste coordinator for Eco Superior.
For the month of May Thunder Bay’s community members and partners participating in the initiative will receive a kit for clean up. The kit contains gloves and trash bags. Eco Superior also has pocket ashtrays, litter pickers, and sharps containers available to the community for pick up while supplies lasts.
“We're going on three decades and the participation from the community is just outstanding,” said Lee Amelia, coordinator of waste diversion for the City of Thunder Bay.
With more than 6,000 community members signed up, Eco Superior is expecting around 10,000 pledges for Spring Up to Clean Up.
“After the winter melt, we see a lot of garbage that's collected over the season, and what happens is all that garbage ends up being washed down our drains, and those storm drains leads directly to Lake Superior,” said Amy Ryan, communications coordinator with Eco Superior.
The use of data collection cards to measure the month-long event's success will be returning.
“It was a really popular initiative and it really helped us to see what garbage was where and that helps guide us with things like our litter traps to know where the city is having the most litter and where they could be most effective,” Ryan added.
Community members participating in Spring Up to Clean Up also have the option to take part in contests.
Community members and businesses can enter by sharing photos of their cleanup efforts on social media, while those who return completed data cards will be eligible for the data collection prize draw. All participating classrooms will be entered in a draw for a pizza party.
Information on registration for Spring Up to Clean up can be found here.
