Like many, Lori Iannidinardo likes to walk. And, like many of us, she is noticing the amount of garbage strewn on the ground.
But this year, the energetic Cowichan Bay area director is issuing a call to action.
"This was a three garbage bag Saturday morning walk," she said on her Facebook page last weekend.
"This is located at the Whippletree Junction turn around," she added, including a video to show what she found. You can see it on her Facebook page.
"Come on, let’s be garbage free in Area D for 2015," she urged.
"I’ve been doing it for quite a few years myself," Iannidinardo said of her cleanup campaign. "I try to walk every Saturday and I’ve been picking up two garbage bags every Saturday. That’s how bad the garbage is. I just can’t believe it."
What she really wants to see picked up is plastic garbage.
"I’d like to put the challenge out there for a Plastic Free Area D. Let’s see where we can get."
People are more willing to get out and gather stuff if they can make a buck out of it. Folks scrounge for beer and pop cans.
"I leave the cans myself for other people," she said. "I pull them up by the road, though."
But Iannidinardo is concerned about the wider effect on the environment.
"I was really moved when I went to a sustainability workshop and saw a video on that place, Midway Island. The sight of that has never left me. After you see it, you’re never the same: where the albatross were feeding their babies little lighters and bottle caps. The ocean there is so full of it that mothers are diving down and coming up with these bits of plastic to feed their babies, who are all dying. It’s been quite a few years since I saw that but that’s when I started my own quest."
The response to her call has been quick and enthusiastic on Facebook.
She said, in addition, she wants to speak to the gun club because she’s spotted plastic shells and wadding in the Cowichan Bay estuary and is hoping to see a "pack in, pack out" campaign started for hunters.
