Every little thing matters for Spring Cleanup

The Eastern Door’s 30th annual Spring Cleanup is just a week away, held in collaboration with the Waste Management Unit of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake and the Kahnawake Environment Protection Office (KEPO).

The headquarters for the cleanup on Friday, April 24, will be The Eastern Door offices on Old Chateauguay Road, where volunteers will be able to pick up garbage bags and gloves to help clean, as well as be entered in prize draws.

Iotshatenawi Reed, Waste Management’s communications liaison, is hoping for more community participation on Friday than in the recent past, with the whole family encouraged to participate in cleanup efforts.

“I know it’s not the greatest that we’re making our children pick up the waste of these adults, it shouldn’t be their responsibility, but it is showing them that it is not good to throw garbage down on the ground, to pick up your waste, taking care of the Earth, the importance of that,” said Reed.

“I think that we should be keeping our Earth clean in the first place. It’s important not only for us, but it’s important for all the natural world to have a clean Earth, because we are supposed to protect our Earth, and it’s good if we leave our Earth clean and beautiful for the next generation to come.”

Waste Management is not targeting any specific area for the cleanup day, with Reed emphasizing that anything makes a difference.

“Every little piece of garbage counts when you pick it up. Even though it’s small, you’re still making a big impact for the Earth, for the animals, for the insects. I think it’s very important that we have that in our heads, that every little thing counts,” said Reed.

She mentioned a few ways community members could easily find some things to clean around where they live.

“Clean your roadways, clean your yards, clean the parks, clean along the side of the walkways, just picking up pieces of garbage that you see anywhere, everywhere helps,” said Reed, even just stray cans or bottles or plastic wrappers.

For bigger items like tires or discarded furniture, along with metal and electronics that are found while doing cleanup, Waste Management will be collecting those at The Eastern Door offices to send them over to the Transfer Depot.

Although it had been previously announced that Waste Management would be able to give away compost during the cleanup day, Reed said they will unfortunately be unable to do so, as it will not have been tested in time to be safely given away.

The Eastern Door’s editor/publisher Steve Bonspiel said that the Spring Cleanup will always be important to him, even as he hopes to transition more of the responsibility for the event over to Waste Management and KEPO, which specialize in environmental issues.

“We’ll always support it, because just look around: there’s so much garbage, so much disrespect for the land,” said Bonspiel.

“There’s still a lot of education to do.”

He said that as there are multiple cleanup days in some concentrated areas in the community, there should also be multiple days where the community as a whole is encouraged to clean up.

“Ultimately, it’s up to everyone to keep our community clean, but if you don’t do it yourself, or you don’t teach your children that kind of respect, then we will continue this uphill battle for many years to come,” he said.

Official cleanup times are from 7 a.m. to noon on April 24, but all are encouraged to do some cleaning throughout the entire day or when they have time outside those hours.

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