On Saturday, Feb. 27, Willoughby Heights resident Jay Corkum’s family, with the help of a volunteer, were picking up the trash from a vacant lot on 198A Street near 72 Avenue.
Corkum, who posted a public call for people to come help remove the garbage from the site on Facebook, said the idea came to him during a conversation with his eight-year-old son Alex. One of their walks had taken them past the trees and bushes – and junk – on the site.
“He said, dad, why is all this garbage here?” Corkum recalled.
“I said, you know what, it’s our neighbourhood, why don’t we clean it up.”
While some commenters online have suggested residents should call the Township, Corkum disagrees.
“In the grand scheme scheme of things, its our neighbourhood, I feel like we should do something about it as well.”
“So I said, well, let’s take a couple of hours out of our Saturday.”
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On Saturday, Corkum, his spouse Meghan Rodger, and Alex did exactly that, with the assistance of the lone volunteer who showed up.
It was all too easy to fill up garbage bags, with bagged-up junk stuffed into the back of Corkum’s pickup truck, which ended up having to make two trips to an actual dump.
“We got some big stuff,” Corkum said.
A lot of it was recyclable, he noted.
“They’re too lazy to take it to the dump,” Corkum commented.
Rodger was surprised to discover soil was among the trash dumped in the bushes.
“People have put bags of dirt in,” she marvelled.
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