119,000 pieces of litter picked up along the shores of Lake Ontario
Photo courtesy of Love Your Lake volunteer, Victoria DeBoer
What is Love Your Lake?
We used to answer this question with a familiar spiel that went something like this: “Love Your Lake is a series of 100 community litter cleanups along the shores of Lake Ontario, between Kingston and Niagara-on-the-Lake.”
However, as we all know, the pandemic changed everything - including, of course, how we run our programs.
In 2021, we adapted our Love Your Lake program into a Community Science model, where, instead of hosting big, public gatherings, we recruited volunteers to do their own, independent cleanups of the shoreline.
Volunteers were trained on how to safely do a cleanup and collect data. Then, we challenged them to collectively pick up 100,000 pieces of litter between May 15th and June 30th and sent them on their way.
A Greener Future staff, Elise and Nicole, and Love Your Lake volunteer, Karen.
The Results
We were blown away by the success of Love Your Lake 2021, and we owe it all to the 81 amazing volunteers that participated in the program. With their help, we were able to remove 119,112 pieces of litter from the Lake Ontario shoreline, blowing our initial goal of picking up 100,000 pieces out of the water!
With this new Community Science model, we were also able to reach more locations than we would have otherwise. In total, 266 cleanups were done across 112 shoreline locations.
Top 10 items:
Polystrene (Foam): 38,212 pieces
Cigarette Butts: 23,656 pieces
Misc. Plastic: 16,752 pieces
Paper: 6,744 pieces
Food Wrappers: 6,245 pieces
Plastic Bottle Caps: 3,004 pieces
Glass: 2,832 pieces
Construction Items: 1,942 pieces
Misc. Plastic Bags: 1,721 pieces
Cans: 1,557 pieces
Results Dashboard
2021 Cleanup Locations
Thank you
We are so thankful to our sponsors, volunteers, and supporters for helping us make Love Your Lake 2021 our most successful one yet! With your continued support, we are able to ensure that Lake Ontario remains a clean and safe water source for us to enjoy
