Published April 26, 2010
by iris_author
On Friday, April 24th, 2010, IRIS had the opportunity to participate in the City of Toronto’s 20-minute Makeover at York University. This makeover was a celebratory event for Earth Day and marked York’s commitment to campus sustainability. We went to the Danby Woods by Chimneystack Road to clean up one of the woodlots on campus.
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The group found a wide range of dumped objects in all kinds of materials, mostly fabric, plastic and paper products. We also found a hidden “dump site” – a place where people seem to cover their garbage with leaves and branches. The group dug most of the garbage out from the mound. Disposable food and drink packages were the majority of the waste collected there. Some of the packages had already started decomposing when we dug them out. However, we found that even for paper packages, there was still a certain amount of material that is not biodegradable—at least in the short run. For example, Tim Hortons cups contain a thin layer of plastic protection inside the cup that takes longer to decompose than the paper component of the cup. Even once the outside paper layer is gone, the inside layer was still be present in cups that we found.
I think the whole process of participating in this activity is fairly educational. One might never notice how much waste material we have around us unless we take a serious look. Within twenty minutes, IRIS and other groups picked up seven bags of garbage including an unwanted kid cart. I was amazed by the result and the effort we can make to perfect our environment within only 20 minutes! Waste and disposable materials are a serious problem to consider. Instead of focusing purely on academic perspective, we should put our theory into practice. We should pay more attention to our living environment and protect the earth by contributing small daily tasks such as picking up some garbage. If we work together and show that we care, we can make a huge difference together.
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