The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup

[+wavector]

Local geocachers are involved in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup here in Medicine Hat. It is great to see people out cleaning up the environment, getting out there and doing it works a lot better than talking about it.

 

I know there are CITO caches that are listed on the site and that are part of this cleanup but I decided not to make a CITO cache but rather just encourage local geocachers to go out and help the people already organizing the cleanup. We are not leading the way but I know that we are helping and making a difference. A local park naturalist was happy to the "geocachers" at the cleanup and it creates the sense that we too are friends of the environment.

 

The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup runs all this week (Sept 16 - 24) and if you are looking for a way to help you can look for a local CITO event and kick in. Barring that, just go out there and help with any local initiative and mention that you are a geocacher.

 

Yesterday I volunteered and our group picked up almost 3000lbs of trash from along the banks of a local creek. Next week GAS (our local geocaching org) is coordinating a site cleanup along the north side of the river in our city.

 

So get out there and help even if you don't get that CITO icon.

[+MissJenn]

Is this the correct link for the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup?

http://www.vanaqua.org/cleanup/

 

[+wavector]

Thanks Miss Jenn, that is the link.

The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is organized by the Vancouver Aquarium.

The original shoreline cleanup efforts were organized by the Ocean Conservancy and the effort was primarily aimed at cleaning the seashore. The shoreline cleanup effort has been extended to include all shorelines, the oceans, lakes, creeks, stream and rivers. There will be volunteers out in every city and in every area and anyone wanting to go out and spend three hours cleaning up makes a difference, tomorrow will be a busy day in many communities.

 

I think that cleaning up is important, CITO efforts are rewarding for geocachers but everyone benefits from efforts like the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. In Medicine Hat the cleanup has been organized by The River Stewards and they managed to get help from other groups like the Grasslands Naturalists and The Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corp, local businesses like the Zuchinni Blossom Cafe get involved and ask customers and staff to show up and help. Having geocachers show up and contribute to the cleanup is a great way to let others know about our activity.

[+wavector]

I hope that a lot of people managed to get out and do some cleanup.

Doing these clean-ups is a great way to become more familiar with trails and parks in the area where you live.

Hunting for garbage is also a great training exercise for geocachers.

We were out two Saturdays in a row for this effort and we managed to make a dint in the litter in a few spots. I had a bunch of kids out cleaning up trash and they found a green garbafge bag full of new plush toys, there were still tags on every item. There were probably 70 or 80 pieces of plush in the bag, all in perfect shape. The kids were thrilled that they got a new toy, they were not expecting anything.

I will be taking the rest of the toys to the local Salvation Army.

I am not sure how a full bag of brand new plush got left in the woods along the river but I wasn't surprised we found it because we found a lot of stuff.

 

Here are a couple of pics from our Saturday adventure;

 

 

An enthusiastic group, when they go back to school on Monday they will all have a story to tell!

 

 

Here is a look at the bag of plush toys we found.

 

 

Along the edge of the South Saskatchewan River.

Edited September 26, 2006 by wavector

[+Scoutbound]

British Columbia geocachers gathered in Surrey on Saturday to take part in the Cleanup at Mud Bay.

 

~45 people collected over 300 pounds of garbage, with such items as screen doors, rubber mats, tents and a statue of an Indian god.

Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup-Mud Bay Park

[South Surrey Scavengers]

British Columbia geocachers gathered in Surrey on Saturday to take part in the Cleanup at Mud Bay.

 

~45 people collected over 300 pounds of garbage, with such items as screen doors, rubber mats, tents and a statue of an Indian god.

Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup-Mud Bay Park

Thanks for the post Scoutbound! Some time ago I posted about the event in the GC Canada Forums and the LMGA forums. But I didn't think to post here the most obvious spot.

 

I'll provide my write up here as well:

 

Thanx to everyone that showed up for the first Mud Bay Park CITO Event. It was a great day in the Lower Mainland with sunny skies and friendly geocachers. The idea for a holding a CITO event in the Lower Mainland was first proposed by Dogbreathcanada. After some discussion between DBC, BCGeocacher (TLG) and myself we decided to ask members of the LMGA for their opinions. QuigleyJones first proposed that it be held in conjunction with Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup which is sponsored by TD Canada Trust and the Vancouver Aquarium. After a search for a person to coordinate the event did not find any willing volunteers I decided to take it upon myself although I expected a time conflict with running kids around to their various events. Fortunately my oldest daughter came out and helped and the two younger ones stayed homewith my wife.

On to the event. Water was donated by QuigleyJones (from Choices Market) and wild wiggly beanz. We went through nearly 6 dozen by the end of the day. Prizes were donated by wild wiggly beanz (ready made cache), koakai (travel bug tags), and by landsharkz (lanyard, 2 wrist bands, and pin).

 

From 2 PM to 4 PM the group collected an estimated 300 pounds of garbage. The largest items included a screen door, metal bucket, retread from a semi, rubber mat, a tent, and a slab of Styrofoam.

 

It’s a little hard for me to identify the prize winners since I don’t know anyones names but here goes: The team collecting the most garbage was koakai with V-I Cacher. They received the Travel Bug tags and since koakai had donated them they went home with V-I Cacher. The team collecting the most peculiar item was scoutbound, off road explorers, and two others that I don’t know their GC names. They received the ready made cache. V-I cacher collected the most cigarette filters and took home a wrist band. The remaining wrist band, pin, and lanyard were given out to 3 young cachers. I don’t have complete member lists for the teams so I know I’m missing some cachers and I apologize.

 

Their were a total of 44 volunteers participating in the event and they were of all ages right down to a baby in a stroller.

[+MissJenn]

The team collecting the most peculiar item was scoutbound, off road explorers, and two others that I don't know their GC names. They received the ready made cache.

What was it????

[South Surrey Scavengers]

The team collecting the most peculiar item was scoutbound, off road explorers, and two others that I don't know their GC names. They received the ready made cache.

What was it????

I seemed to have lost that in the last revision. The most peculiar item found was a statue of Ganesh.

[FlagFinder]

i see no one has mentioned my idea for a cito i may not be old enough to hold one but heres my idea to the rest of you. i did a phone interview with the head of the MN DNR's Adopt a river program i told him about caching and he never heard of it well next day he sent me an email talking about how the mn dnr has just allowed it in state parks but then i asked him if i could do a cito cache with your program and he loved the idea and says it would also be a bonus to keeping geocaching up in state parks and we would be on the dnrs good side. well i know that other states do adopt a river i just dont know which ones but if you log on to your states dnr page you can look up the program this is a major convieniance because its not just rivers its any body of water the deal is a minimum 2 year project with cleanups anually about 1 or 2 months apart maybe excluding winter

[+JSDAFM]

Hello

 

I just wanted to let people know that this is happening again this year (Sept 15-23,2007)

 

I have been trying to make a CITO event out of it but since it's a sponsored event I'm having no luck, any suggestions?

 

Will the GCSC be ok if I just tell them the numbers of planned participants (based on the will attend logs from the event profile page, if is gets published) because as per geocaching guidelines I cannot ask the geocachers to sign-up on a 3rd party site to participate, but I want to make sure that we have gloves, etc for the 100+ people who might attend (just a guess).

 

I think that it my only hold up right now (it's my first cache placement and I had to pick a tough one, eh??)