How To Help Lake Ontario with A Greener Future
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Picking up trash made me love my lake more than ever
A Greener Future volunteer, Natalia Jureczek, picking up litter on the Lake Ontario shoreline.
Canada is home to the Great Lakes, which, collectively, are one of the world’s largest surface freshwater ecosystems. Our Great Lakes, which include Lake Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, are home to 3500 species of plants and animals. The Great Lakes support a vibrant ecosystem and contribute to the character of the region.
Here in Ontario, we are lucky enough to have access to four out of five of these lakes. While Ontarians often flock to the Great Lakes for recreation, in recent years, these lakes have made headlines for various pollution concerns, including E.Coli warnings.
Our efforts this month at A Greener Future have centered on Lake Ontario; arguably the most polluted of the Great Lakes. Our goal is to give our lake a little extra… love.
Volunteers cleaning up the shores of Lake Ontario. Photo by Victoria DeBoer.
Love Your Lake 2021
Typically, Love Your Lake involves A Greener Future doing 100 litter cleanups along the shores of Lake Ontario. Communities are invited to join these cleanups, and sometimes we see a turnout of more than 50 people! With all of those helping hands, we can pick up a LOT of litter.
However, A Greener Future was forced to cancel all of our scheduled community litter cleanups in 2021 because of COVID-19. Instead, we adapted the program to allow volunteers to carry out their own, independent cleanups of the lake to comply with pandemic restrictions.
How it works
Volunteers have been cleaning the shores of Lake Ontario since May 15th, and will continue to do so until the program ends on June 30th. To date, there are 170 volunteers between Kingston and Niagara-on-the-Lake participating in the program.
Our volunteers collect data on the litter they find and share it with the team at A Greener Future. Once we know what type of trash is most commonly found on the shores of Lake Ontario, we can reflect on our goals and better track the program’s impact.
While this year’s Love Your Lake Program looks different from previous years due to health and safety restrictions in effect from the COVID-19 pandemic, we are still working to reach our goal of collecting 100,000 pieces of litter from the shoreline of Lake Ontario.
Litter collected by A Greener Future volunteer, Carolyn Legere.
Our Progress So Far
We are nearing the end of the program, and our volunteers have collected more than 90,000 pieces of litter! Of this litter, cigarette butts, foam pieces, and plastic pieces are the top three contributors. Together, they make up nearly half of the total litter collected.
When cigarette butts, foam pieces, and plastic pieces find their way into our lake, they break into smaller pieces and contribute to our microplastic problem.
Additionally, Lake Ontario feeds into the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River, so our local trash may eventually start to pollute the ocean. We can do better - and programs like Love Your Lake help to address these issues.
A Greener Future staff and volunteers after a cleanup at Presqu’ile Provincial Park
My Takeaway
As a blogger at A Greener Future, I have been inspired by the momentum generated by collective will and effort. This has led me to participate in programs like the Butt Blitz, and now the Love Your Lake Program.
While we can read about sustainability and climate change, there is no greater substitute than to get outside and see the issue first hand. This is what my experience with the Love Your Lake Program has given me. Whereas previous trips to Lake Ontario have been for swimming or dining with a waterfront view, my Love Your Lake clean ups have forced me to look at the lake a bit more closely.
With a careful eye, it is easy to see the sheer amount of litter that is left on our beaches. This realization has changed my relationship with Lake Ontario. I have become more cognizant of my relationship with the lake: it supports me, and I must support it. It has shifted my understanding of how we use the lake, and I believe that these kinds of shifts are what prompt sustainability.
Love Your Lake runs from May 15 - June 30th and A Greener Future is recruiting volunteers at this time.
If you are interested in participating, click here to sign up!