Cleaning up an urban stream with the GreenStep team

Have you ever participated in an urban cleanup? It might not be as exciting as a beach cleanup in some remote corner of the world but it still has an impact!

Adopt-a-Stream

Recently, my colleagues at GreenStep (who I’ve written about before here) and I convened at a section of Mill Creek in downtown Kelowna to give it a makeover. GreenStep has participated in the Adopt-a-Stream program for a number of years, so we’ve become intimately familiar with this particular bend of the creek. It’s surrounded by multi-family residential buildings and winds its way underneath a major road artery into downtown Kelowna. Storm drains funnel runoff into its waters. It’s also a beautiful spot: this little creek is surrounded by willows, climbing hops, and even some sneaky mushrooms popping up in the grass. It feels lush and peaceful, despite being right next to a busy stretch of road.

Given its proximity to people, it’s not surprising then, that we find discards from humanity along its banks. Every year during this urban cleanup, we consistently find cigarette butts, food packaging, and even clothes. And every year, we unearth some oddities. This year’s highlights of weird, random finds included:

• A BBQ
• A love letter
• A burnt safe with $4 worth of “toonies” inside
• A little toy piglet
• A hypodermic needle* in its protective sheath
• A tooth (we think/hope from an animal)

Cleaning up a stream like this one illuminates different things about society: needs, vices, and relationships. And we can’t help but fabricate stories about the finds: who was the person writing that love note? How did the safe get burned? What was the reason for that needle? And um…what happened to the owner of that tooth?! 😳

* You’ll see in the photo below that there is a yellow flag next to the needle. Sharps are taken very seriously in Kelowna and our protocols state that we’re not to touch them. Instead, we flag the sharps and let the City know so that their trained experts can remove them safely.

Urban cleanup versus beach cleanup

I think urban cleanups can feel gritty in a way that’s different from a sandy beach cleanup or some remote, rocky shoreline cleanup. Urban cleanups force us to reckon with society and humanity in a different way. They are grimy and often not super pretty as compared to beach plastic tumbled smooth by endless waves (pulling an old umbrella out from under a rock in a muddy creek is decidedly not sexy). But, urban cleanups are real and raw. And, they are equally important, if not more so. Why?

The importance of cleaning up our ‘hood

GreenStep’s section of Mill Creek is situated right before it empties into Okanagan Lake. During our cleanup, I noticed plastic garbage stuck at the entrance of a storm drain. After safely dodging traffic, I managed to yank it out before it was swept away.

Urban cleanups are where the waste begins its journey. Waste lost at this point will inevitably wash into a storm drain or an urban creek and, if not captured, ends up in a larger water body. This, of course, is how our plastic pollution problem in the ocean got to be such a problem in the first place. Therefore, it’s really important that we focus on these areas of our communities. Not only to keep them clean but understand their nuances and find ways of making them better.

Have you ever participated in an urban cleanup before? If so, what did you think of it? What was your most interesting find?