Earth Day is being marked on Thursday, April 22, and one Edmonton group is rallying people to join a city-wide cleanup effort.
Better Environments Inc. is hoping people will register online and head out through their neighbourhoods as a local way to participate in the worldwide event.
Hunter “Mac” McAlear, the CEO of Better Environments Inc., said it was started last May amid the pandemic as a way to safely clean up communities in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“It started off as a couple friends and I going out to do some community service and get some fresh air, and it snowballed into a national non-profit organization.”
McAlear says that nearly 300 volunteers have collected more than 552 bags of garbage through 56 cleaning events over the last several months.
“We allow for all the comfort levels,” she said. “We have a solo clean and a team clean.
“Our solo clean is aimed for our volunteers who just want to kind of go out, go for a walk, stay kind of isolated. And our team cleans are very spread out wide kind of group events.”
On Thursday, it’s as easy as signing up, grabbing a bag and doing your part.
“It’s an all-day cleaning event with no time limit, so you don’t have to worry about being outside for any particular time or being available,” she said.
“It’s a partnered event, so we get to work alongside Waste Free Edmonton, Capital City Clean Up, some of the Edmonton Public Schools are getting involved (and) River Valley Cleanup.
“We kind of encourage our volunteers to clean their communities first so they can see the impact they have.”
The group hopes to get at least 100 volunteers to participate on Thursday.
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