With Earth Day now behind us the Driftwood’s Greening Salt Spring campaign is officially closed for another year. We would like to congratulate the many islanders who stepped up for the extra challenge, as well as those who make litter pickup part of their usual practice.
Participation this year more than doubled from our inaugural campaign in 2018, which is inspiring us to think about how we can get bigger and better in 2020. A focus on the main arteries is one suggestion, while ongoing education around plastic reduction is something we intend to work on year-round.
Heroes of this year’s efforts that deserve special mention are the team of Jérôme Dupuy, Rosamund Dupuy, Joann Grey, Caroline Hickman and Jordan Soames. They bravely took on Fulford-Ganges Road all the way from Fulford Hall to Burgoyne Bay Road and came back with 10 full garbage bags plus a lot of large things that were too big for bags. Kudos to the team for wearing safety vests for maximum visibility on a busy road.
Juliette and Rick Laing meanwhile collected a pickup load of garbage from party areas under the power lines at the end of Wilkie Way, taking away plastic, pop cans, broken TV sets and more.
Further congratulations go to Suzie Gagnon, who was the very first to sign up for the 2019 campaign and wound up covering much of Sunset Drive.
We should also mention that our elected officials aren’t too high and mighty to pick up trash. Peter Grove and his wife Mary were spotted working on a very problematic stretch of North End Road on Easter Sunday.
Some of our participants elected to donate their recycling proceeds to local charities, such as the food bank and societies with environmental initiatives.
Once again, we also thank Laurie’s Recycling and Waste for generously donating the cost of disposal of all the trash collected during the campaign.
For more on this story including the full list of participants, see the April 24, 2019 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or subscribe online.