Corey, paid by the City of Calgary to pick up other people’s garbage.

This area has been cleaned up from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

There’s always some interesting trash fanning out on the flats.

Thanks to my cousin-sister-friend, I have Haida Gwaii rubber boots!

One Bag: May 1, 2013

Arch, of the City of Calgary crew.

Justin, responsible for city parks on the south end of the city, sent a crew out to work at Frank’s Flats and so I met them there.  Winter has left a mountain of litter down at the Flat’s, a very sad thing after all of the work I did to maintain the situation last year.  It was a joy to listen to the crew members talking about their concerns about plastics and those sorts of topics, while they worked.  I feel strongly that if citizens do not wish to take any responsibility for the sort of mess that is accumulating EVERYWHERE, then their taxes need to pay other people to take care of the clean-up.  I don’t believe that working a limited number of volunteers in a limited number of situations is the answer.  This changes NOTHING about the consciousness of the individuals who are routinely irresponsible.

I watched a dog owner stand in the parking lot today and watch his brown lab go down into the Flats to do its business.  When I asked him if he was going to go down and pick it up, he called his dog, put him in his vehicle and drove off.  This is what I’m talking about.  In fact, here is a photograph from one big clean-up at the Southland dog park.  This is despicable!  The sad thing is that by the time this clean-up is done at Frank’s Flats, there will be the same amount of human waste piled high…only it will be primarily plastics and paper products.  What variables have contributed to the creation of such an ‘entitled’ society?

January 1 Off Leash Poop Pick Up