Mayor’s Anti-Litter Day Event Great Event, Short On Innovation

It all started with the reminding announcement I heard on the radio yesterday while driving home. The announcer sounded rather sarcastic than encouraging the Aurora Mayor’s Anti-Litter Day participation.

Today was the Mayor’s Anti-Litter Day and I don’t even know where to begin – I have so many thoughts.


Let’s start with the positive side of the anti-litter day event. Any type of awareness is good for the community. Its good for the environment and its good for our children as they are our future and we need to teach them good environmental habits.

Congratulations to all who participated in today’s event.


The Town of Aurora announced this event on their site and concluded with this statement: ‘Last year, Aurorans collected 1.94 tonnes (1940 kilograms) of litter and we are looking to collect even more in 2012.‘

Is more better you may ask yourself? I asked my husband the same question after the event not seeing the above statement yet. I stated – ‘I hope that this year during this event less garbage will be collected.‘


Collecting less and less litter during this day event is a positive outcome and it means that the Mayor’s Anti-Litter Day awareness is working. It was rather disappointing to read that the Town of Aurora was looking forward to collect more litter in 2012.

I know, I know, I am picking on something probably very insignificant and I am sure that whoever wrote this note did not mean for us to interpret that way. I am sure they meant that more volunteers will come out and help to clean up our town. More of us out, more garbage collected.


Then another question popped in my head later on – are we innovative?

I admit, I did not participate in collecting garbage today (I got my reasons) but we did come to the Town Park to enjoy the activities with Matthew just before lunch. Park was still preparing for the celebration – food and fun activities for volunteers and families. We had an opportunity to enjoy few things without waiting in long lines.

We had other obligations, so we left before volunteers arrived for the celebration.


Yes, innovation came to my mind when I saw blue recycle boxes full of drinks in cans and plastic bottles. So how innovative is that? Volunteers spend three hours collecting garbage around the town and then we come to the town park to generate more garbage. I just find this ironic.

I am sure anti-littering day event is not only to tell littering people not to litter, but bring up the complete environmental awareness how bad to the environment is the littering concept.


So here is what I have to say. We have to be more innovative. Repeating same thing over and over again does not make things greener. We need to think about solutions that work. We need to educate children to develop good habits.


Last year about 2000 kg of litter was collected. If I recall last year’s event, I have seen some interesting items piled up in the pick up areas. I think if you reuse what was collected you could easily assemble living space for a one person.

The good news is that we did not have such things this year, at least in the area where I live. But if we collect about the same weight of litter, then that means we collected more of light garbage.


How can we reduce littering? Not so fast, first we need to identify source of littering. Probably the biggest litter comes from blue boxes that are filled to the top on the windy day. Second source comes from people who litter.


Our blue box broke. The garbage man is to blame. Town will replace your blue box with a new one. All you need to do is to bring broken one for a worthwhile exchange. We did and we got not just brand new box but taller one. We did not have chance to use it yet as we continue to have technical difficulties filling up the smaller blue box.

Hint, put three inch mark inside the blue box from the top that shows recommended fill up height and develop habit to never pass that mark.


Perhaps in years to come the Mayor’s Anti-Litter day will be more strategic and innovative. I am hoping to see less litter on the ground, less litter collected and less litter generated as a result of this awareness.

Lastly, lets hope that next year I will also capture some innovative ideas on photos because this year was just like last year.