Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Litter

People were talking about picking up trash in the comments of an earlier post, so here's a Ms. Johnson cartoon on the topic from late last year.

When I'm walking Zack, we pick up trash and this cartoon was inspired by the disgusting state of a local schoolyard. There are two main sources of trash in our neighbourhood: The Dufferin Mall and ~~St. Sebastian~~ St. Helen (the school, not the saint).

The Duff is a source of trash because there's a food court and people -- mostly students from the high school on Lansdowne -- leave trails of fast food litter along the streets and back alleys. The elementary school generates trash in three ways: kids leave junk food litter at recess, people who use the yard for hockey on weekends leave their trash and parents drop a lot of litter in the planters at the front of the school while they wait for their kids (Tim Horton's has a slight edge on Coffee Time).

You're probably wondering: doesn't the school have a janitor? I was wondering that for a few weeks until one day, someone "cleaned" the yard .... by pushing the kids' litter under the fence and on to the sidewalk where people from the neighbourhood, like myself, picked it up. In fact, the state of that yard would be much worse if it weren't for the neighbours.

I think I will email the superintendent and local trustee to complain:

to: barbara.poplawski@tcdsb.org;angela.gauthier@tcdsb.org
subject: litter

Hello,

The litter around the St. Sebastian school inspired the attached cartoon which appeared in the December issue of the Liberty Gleaner. (it can also be viewed here http://brettlamb.com/msjohnson/) Myself and other neighbours frequently pick up trash left by the children at recess ... but perhaps it would be more appropriate to encourage the children and their parents not to litter.

Sincerely,
BL

I will report back and let you know if things get cleaned up!

10:17 PM , # ,