Volunteers clean up Ottawa River shoreline

Photo: Some of the volunteers who helped clean up Westboro Beach in Ottawa.


A four-kilometre stretch of the Ottawa River shoreline is cleaner today thanks to the hard work of a group of approximately 60 volunteers who came out to Westboro Beach and Bates Island on Sunday.

Delphine Hasle, director of outreach for the NGO Ottawa Riverkeeper, welcomed people with muffins and a brief explanation of the morning’s procedures.

“If you see a syringe or a condom, don’t touch it,” said Ms. Hasle. "Someone from the City of Ottawa will come by later and pick them up," she said.

Other than that, everything else was fair game.

Ms. Hasle passed out latex gloves and bags to the volunteers, who then split up and began the arduous task of picking up both garbage and recyclable material from the beach and the adjacent shoreline.

“I am moving into the neighbourhood and I want to do my bit,” said Gary Underwood, as he picked up several plastic wrappers from Westboro beach. “We come down here to watch the sunset.”

Not far away, Kennedy Blackbird, 11, picked up an old ball cap and put it in her garbage bag.

“It’s fun to clean up,” she said.

According to Ms. Hasle, the volunteers picked up 45 bags of garbage and 25 bags of recyclable materials.

They found an assortment of car parts and old tires, cigarette butts, wrappers, beer bottles (intact and smashed), rusted paint cans, scrap metals, discarded clothing and backpacks, fluorescent light bulbs – and incredibly – a wallet complete with health card and birth certificate.

As a reward for their hard work, the National Capital Commission and the Newport Restaurant put on a barbeque lunch for the volunteers.

The Ottawa River supplies drinking water, power and recreational activities to more than 1.6 million people.















Photo: Gary Underwood cleaning up garbage on Westboro Beach in Ottawa.