Dumping prompts cleanup
Workers from Waste Management and the Kahnawake Environment Protection Office spent hours cleaning up the area last week. Miriam Lafontaine The Eastern Door
Piles of garbage bags. A mound of red bricks. The remnants of a lit firecracker. Three mismatched chairs around what was once a fire. Along Seaway Road, sights like these aren’t anything out of the ordinary.
“This past year we’ve had a really big increase in illegal dumping,” said Waste Management communications person Iotshatenawi Reed, who came up with the idea to organize the cleanup.
Her team connected with workers from the Kahnawake Environment Protection Office (KEPO) to get the job done. The group gathered there early last Friday morning, equipped with gloves, trash bags, and a loader.
Within the first two hours, over a ton of waste had already been collected, said Kyle Diabo, the man behind the wheel.
“I have everything scaled here,” said Diabo, pointing to a reading on the heavy machinery. Three tons of waste were collected within a 300-metre range.
It was Diabo and Reed who came up with the idea to get the cleanup organized – not just because it was urgent to get the area cleaned up, but also because this month is Earth Month, Reed said.
Community members were also encouraged to join in on the cleanup.
Prizes are up for grabs for those who are doing their part to keep Kahnawake clean this month. All community members have to do is send in a before and after photo of the area they clean to the Waste Management Facebook page.
Photos can be submitted up until the last day of April, Reed said. A fishing rod, $50 Shop Kahnawake certificates, and free garbage bin cleanings from a local company are available to be won.
“We wanted to clean up this road and make it look nice, not only for our community, but for the natural world. We still share this land with critters,” Reed said.
Kenneth Canadian was among the workers from the environment office who came out last Friday.
“If it’s easy to do in a place where no one’s going to see you, people will just litter, even if they don’t believe in littering,” said Canadian, who is an environmental technologist at KEPO. “If it’s more convenient for them to dump it there, rather than going five minutes out of their way to a trash can, they’ll just do it. It’s just a fact of life. It’s human psychology, and it’s unfortunate.”
He has a long history of cleaning up the area, which is targeted by non-locals and locals alike.
“Often I find discarded jugs of motor oil,” he said, adding he always makes sure to bring any hazardous waste he finds to the Transfer Depot.
He often patrols the area. One time, he managed to catch someone in the act.
“I called the cops on them, and they came to intercept them before they could dump, but it’s such a long road. The odds of actually catching someone are pretty low,” he said.
“It really is a team effort. We’re trying to keep the community free of dumping,” he added, saying many community members, and those from public security, routinely come out to patrol the area.
It wasn’t always like this, said Holly McComber, the manager at the waste management department.
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“Before, there was a little bit more fear coming into Kahnawake,” she said.
Efforts over the years by the Quebec government to limit where construction and demolition waste can legally be dumped has also coincided with more dumping in the area, she said.
