{"id":531369,"date":"2026-03-12T12:18:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531369\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T12:18:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:18:25","slug":"its-a-mess-volunteers-say-as-thaw-reveals-city-park-and-river-garbage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531369\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s a mess’, volunteers say as thaw reveals city park and river garbage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent warm spell is giving Londoners a look at a familiar spring eyesore along city roadsides, riverbanks, in parks, and near public pathways\u2014garbage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trash and litter, including coffee cups, plastic containers, glass bottles, construction materials, and used drug paraphernalia, have accumulated over the winter, and buried until this week. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith the snow melting, the city typically sees an increase in debris along the river and in park areas,\u201d including general litter and garbage associated with encampments, city spokesperson Carmen Mallia said in an email.<\/p>\n

While the sight of post-thaw refuse isn\u2019t unusual, this winter\u2019s early and abundant snowfall, coupled with a prolonged deep freeze, hindered cleanup, the city said. Rising water levels in the river have also posed a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city\u2019s Coordinated Informed Response team is supporting cleanup activity and working with people living in encampments to address any health and safety concerns. Parks and Forestry crews will also be out in parks collecting debris, with staff capacity increasing as the arena season winds down,\u201d Mallia said.<\/p>\n

\"EncampmentClearout notices are visible at several abandoned encampments in Watson Street Park. Volunteers say there has been more garbage found near encampments. (Matthew Trevithick\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The spokesperson added that some public garbage trash bins in parks are temporarily removed during the winter and are reinstalled as parks reopen for the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s been a major issue for many years, and people are becoming more and more concerned,\u201d Tom Cull said. He’s a community partner specialist at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority and founder and former director of Antler River Rally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMicroplastics, for example, are a huge problem in our environment … and a big percentage of that comes from macroplastics that are garbage or litter that are then breaking down and finding their way into our waterways,\u201d said Cull, adding that it’s a growing problem.<\/p>\n

Only about 10 per cent of plastics made are<\/a> recyclable, Cull said, and even then, he wonders how much of that 10 per cent are properly recycled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about our recycling that goes out every night, when wind blows over our recycling bins, when garbage transfer stations don’t have lids put on them appropriately, when folks are deciding to dump garbage illegally … this all adds up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"TomTom Cull adds a piece of Styrofoam he found in a stream. (Angela McInnes\/CBC)<\/p>\n

There are several community initiatives aimed at collecting this misplaced garbage, Cull said, including his former Antler River Rally\u2014now with the London Environmental Network\u2014which holds regular cleanups in hotspot area. <\/p>\n

The Thames River Cleanup, which is now in its 27th year, is also held in April around Earth Day, drawing as many as 2,000 volunteers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a mess. We had a very severe winter,\u201d founder Todd Sleeper said of the current situation.<\/p>\n

When the Thames River Cleanup first began in 2000, Sleeper says some of the garbage they found included trucks, steel, tires, and appliances. Twenty-seven years later, roughly 90 per cent is plastics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings started to change, probably 10-15 years ago; we started finding the odd needle,\u201d he added. \u201cThat raised a lot of concerns. We had to talk to our community coordinators and offer them training on how to pick up needles and where to take them.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re seeing a lot more garbage, especially around encampments. We’re asking people not to go into the encampments because that’s just not safe and there are people that are living there. We work around them, and sometimes they even help us out.”<\/p>\n

\"GarbageSeveral community initiatives have been working to cleanup garbage. Many of them hold regular cleanups in hotspot areas such as Watson Street Park (Matthew Trevithick\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Encampment-related refuse is an ongoing issue at some city parks, including Watson Street Park. When CBC News visited the park on Tuesday, piles of uncollected garbage could be seen across several former encampment sites cleared out by the city, some several months ago, and one as recently as last week.<\/p>\n

The park had hosted a service depot providing basic necessities until last spring. A fire involving exploding propane tanks led the city to step up enforcement and encampment clearouts. As of last month, 29 people were living in 22 encampments across London, according to city data.<\/p>\n

Cull says people sleeping rough consume less than those housed, but a lack of proper garbage collection means their trash is visible and becomes a “hyperlocal focus of concern, of anger.\u201d No garbage bins could be seen at the park when CBC News visited, only a lone porta-potty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWaste bins are typically reinstalled in parks in late April and early May as part of the city\u2019s seasonal operations, including those located at Watson Park,\u201d Mallia said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think sometimes this is a vulnerable population we kind of download these issues on to, because it’s easier when you come into a park and you see an encampment that perhaps has been abandoned \u2026 you see a great concentration of garbage,\u201d Cull said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, if we went along Veterans Memorial or Highbury right now and collected all the garbage in the ditches, that pile of garbage would greatly dwarf any encampment’s garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cull believes the spring thaw should serve as an opportunity to look at the issue of waste more broadly and the types of materials used in the products we buy and then throw away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The recent warm spell is giving Londoners a look at a familiar spring eyesore along city roadsides, riverbanks,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-531369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}