- Our goals for this event are: pick up harmful trash in our neighbourhood, raise awareness about plastic and cigarette butt waste and have fun!!

- Due to Covid-19 participants are required to register via Eventbrite

- BYO gloves (gardening or other gloves for picking up trash)

- Optional: a bucket or a washable reusable bag (we have some to share, too)

- Sign the waiver upon arrival

- Bring a mask and wear it whenever unable to keep 6 feet apart

- We will meet at 11:15 am and leave promptly at 11:30 am after short intro

- We work in small groups of 2 or 3, 1 person being in charge of a simplified tally sheet

- We give people shopping and strolling on Roncesvalles lots of space

- Our event is registered with the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup https://www.shorelinecleanup.ca/ and we will use their tools (data sheet, waiver etc.) Tallying for this Canada wide initiative is important as it helps create the data needed to push for change.

- The route: we walk down Roncesvalles Ave (a group on each side of the street) as far as we can get within 1.5 h

- Closing circle and meetup will be at Roncesvalles/Fern Ave next to Hot Oven at 12:50 pm where we will add up all cigarette butts into one container and have passerby guess the number.

- We will recycle the cigarette butts through Terracycle https://www.terracycle.com/en-CA/brigades/cigarette-waste-en-ca#how-it-works.

- All other items will be sorted and disposed off through one of our homes (recycling/garbage).

More background:

This week is Waste Reduction Week! https://wrwcanada.com/en/about/waste-reduction-week-canada

At our last cleanup walk on Roncesvalles 13 people picked up over 3500 pieces in one hour and the most frequent items were cigarette butts. The filter of cigarette butts are made of microplastic fiber and contain toxic chemicals. They are one of the sources of microplastic pollution in Lake Ontario.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/cigarettes-filters-butts-microfiber-microplastic-litter-1.5083847

We hope to raise awareness about this problem and also about the fact that single-use plastic use has gone up 200-300% since the start of the pandemic. Even during the pandemic it is important to reduce single-use plastic and packaging as the unlimited accumulation of plastic on our planet is one of the big environmental problems of our time. There are many businesses on Roncesvalles who are aware about this and have found ways to safely accept BYO.