Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup

The 15th annual TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup launched nationally on Saturday, September 20, 2008 with a record 60,000 plus volunteers. Together with the Vancouver Aquarium, TD Friends of the Environment Foundation hosted cleanup events across Canada to kick off the cleanup. Members of the Yaletown Rotary and Scouts Canada joined over thirty Fairleigh Dickinson University-Vancouver students, staff and faculty on Saturday to clean over five-thousand feet of shoreline between the Cambie Bridge and the Burrard Street Bridge. With over 20 bags of garbage collected, some of the most peculiar items collected this year were toothbrushes, a sleeping bag and flip flops. This is the second consecutive year that FDU-Vancouver has taken part in the cleanup.

Shoreline Cleanup 2012

Congratulations to over 40 FDU-Vancouver students who teamed up with the TELUS Corporation in cleaning up our local community at the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup this past weekend. “This is the 5^th consecutive year we have participated in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. Each year we find less and less debris at our cleanup location near the TELUS World of Science, which means our efforts are paying off,” said Jobin Mojtabavi, Associate Director of Students Services. On May 26, 2012, the group spent 2 hours cleaning the shoreline, removing plastic, paper, cigarettes, and other debris until the area was spotless. Over 50 garbage bags worth of litter were collected by the students and TELUS employees. The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is one of the largest direct action environmental events in Canada, engaging tens of thousands of participants annually in every province and territory.

Shoreline Cleanup 2009

FDU-Vancouver Students Volunteer to Clean Vancouver’s Shoreline

For the 3rd consecutive year, students, faculty and staff at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Vancouver campus gave back to their local community by participating in the 2009 TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, the second largest environmental cleanup event in the world. As a university founded on the concept of global education, FDU instills the value of world citizenship so students see how they can affect, and are affected, by the world. FDU-Vancouver partnered with the local Yaletown Rotary Club to create the 2009 cleanup team who cleaned the shoreline of False Creek and Science World in Vancouver, located near the Athlete’s Village for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The sun shined as FDU’s students removed various types of debris ranging from cigarette filters to food wrappers to dead animals. The cleanup team recovered bags of garbage and recyclables leaving the False Creek shoreline clean in just a few hours. The strangest and most dangerous articles removed were over 50 hypodermic syringes that had been discarded around the Creek’s beautiful waters. Numerous joggers and park frequenters thanked the university participants for helping clean the area.

“This is my first year participating in the cleanup and it was a great experience. I really enjoyed cleaning the environment leaving the shoreline in better shape for future citizens to enjoy. I think it is important to volunteer in the local community to make a change and I will be participating in the event next year” said third year Information Technology student, Janny Fransisca. “I was surprised by some of the items we found like shoes, needles and dead seagulls but I am happy that I participated in the event and I am doing it again next year.”

The cleanup held on Saturday, September 26th, was not only a conservation initiative but functioned as a vehicle for world-wide environmental research. All debris collected is tabulated and reported to the Vancouver Aquarium that works with the International Coastal Cleanup to contribute to worldwide results. FDU-Vancouver would like to thank everyone who volunteered his or her time at the Cleanup.

Cleanup Results

In 2008, over 63,000 registrants participated in the Shoreline Cleanup across Canada, resulting in 2,152 KM of shoreline being cleaned using 13,000 garbage bags. Canadians removed 328,733 cigarette filters from our shorelines. Canadians also removed 108,231 food wrappers and 62,405 plastic beverage bottles. Additional information about the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup can be found at
http://www.vanaqua.org/cleanup/home.php.

How It All Started

In 1986, a member of The Ocean Conservancy’s staff, appalled by the litter on the Texas shore, organized a beach cleanup. That day 124 tons of trash was picked up from 122 miles of shoreline by 2,800 Texans in three hours. And so the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup began.

In 1994, four Vancouver Aquarium employees were the first to travel to the shoreline at Coal Harbour in order to recover litter and record data for the International Coastal Cleanup. Since the beginning of the Cleanup every year the amount of litter recovered grows. The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup continues to collect data and debris until the day we change the way we use our waterways.

A Brief History

The Vancouver Aquarium started this program 15 years ago on a beach in Vancouver. They removed a few bags of shoreline litter. In following years, TD Friends of the Environment Foundation joined forces with the Vancouver Aquarium and expanded the program to more provinces. In 2005, TD Bank Financial Group became the title sponsor of the program enabling the Vancouver Aquarium to expand the program nationally. Last year, the participants of the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup removed 87,489 kg of shoreline litter from 1,240 shoreline sites across the country.