Community Clean-up Day 2009

It was the hottest day of the year so far and over 120 children and adults were out on the streets and beach of Joggins helping us with our first annual Community Clean-up Day.

The students, teachers and chaperones from the River Hebert Elementary School along with our team worked tirelessly to help ensure that our backyard is garbage and litter-free.

The volunteers collected everything from candy wrappers to clothing and we hope that participating in the event will help to show the next generation the importance of community pride and environmental stewardship.
To reward the willing volunteers we provided a barbeque and cool drinks. The local elementary school is a wonderful supporter of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs and we would like to pass on our sincere thanks to Luanne Berry and her marvelous team and children for their support and help.

We would like to make this an annual event and one, which the whole community can participate in and be encouraged that the Joggins Fossil Institute is helping them to take care of their own backyard.

All of the garbage collected was sorted and taken to the dump, where it would be recycled. Here are some 'green facts' to help you understand why we take environmental stewardship very seriously:

Recycling all of your home's waste newsprint, cardboard, glass and metal can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 400 kg a year.-Earth Care

The first PET (plastic) bottle was recycled in 1977.-The National Association of PET Container Resources

Incinerating 10,000 tonnes of waste creates 1 job, landfilling the same amount creates 6 jobs, recycling the same 10,000 tonnes creates 36 jobs.-Clean Nova Scotia

In a lifetime, the average North American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in garbage. A 68 kg adult will leave a legacy of 40,825 kg of trash.-Natural Resources Canada