Malcolm Island's TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup!

Saturday, September 26th dawned clear, sunny and warm - perfect weather to get the 37 participants of our "trash teams" out onto our shoreline here in Sointula and Mitchell Bay to try and make a dent in the ever growing piles of flotsam and jetsam that seems to crowd the shores of Malcolm Island.

This was all part of the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, sponsored by the Vancouver Aquarium and, under the auspices of The Ocean Conservancy, part of an international effort to clear debris from shorelines around the world.

For the Malcolm Island event we had help and sponsorship from Living Oceans Society, The Malcolm Island Lions Club, Sointula Recreation Association and the Regional District of Mount Waddington.


Our hard working volunteers (and their pickup trucks) managed to get an estimated 1875 kilograms of junk off the beaches. Over 80 % went to the 7 Mile Recycling depot/landfill while the rest was directed to the Malcolm Island landfill. Any scrap metal, tires, batteries, recyclable plastics and returnables were sorted from the general trash and destined to be recycled.

In Mitchell Bay/Donegal Head area at the south end of Malcolm Island, 12 volunteers collected a huge pickup truck of trash.
This was the first time that Mitchell Bay had been cleaned up during a TDGCSC event although there is a lot of people all over the island who take it upon themselves to clean up the beaches throughout the year.

A huge thanks to everybody who participated this year.
When the final all Canadian cleanup statiistics come in sometime in October I will post the data on Coastal Voices.

Here are a few photos taken on Saturday.