Volunteers with the Earth Ninjas found plenty of evidence of drinking and driving while they were picking up trash along a roughly one-kilometre stretch of Eighth Avenue in Aldergrove on Sunday morning, Feb. 25.
Earth Ninjas founder Jocelyn Titus said the two-hour cleanup between 264th and 272nd Streets found a “lot of alcohol cans [and] bottles.”
“A lot of people are drinking and driving and it’s everywhere,” Titus told the Langley Advance Times.
“It’s not a new thing, sad to say.”
During the couple hours that Titus and volunteers Doug Deschene and Laura Smith, all Aldergrove residents, were hunting litter, they removed 10 bags with 320 lbs. of trash.
It was far from ideal weather conditions, wet, windy, and cold.
“The poster said rain or shine, so we had to stick to it,” Titus laughed.
Deschene, who confided he was “coming up on 82,” was resuming his volunteer work with Earth Ninjas after taking some time off to have a pacemaker installed.
During the past four years of picking up litter, Deschene said they’ve collected everything from furniture to electronics and bicycles, all dumped in ditches.
Two weeks ago, while picking up litter along Robertson Crescent, he said they found a “brand new package of underwear” still in its plastics wrap.
Another time, a brand-new lawn mower, probably stolen, was discovered, and turned over to police.
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Over a three year period, he estimated they have collected about 4,000 pounds of garbage.
Deschene said a perennial annoyance is Styrofoam, which gets chewed up into tiny, hard-to-collect fragments when road crews using mowers to cut grass also shred the discarded packing.
Earth Ninjas, a non-profit volunteer initiative, has been organizing community litter cleanups since 2020.
They expect to be out again in April, for Earth Day.
People interested in helping can contact Titus by emailing Earthninjas604@gmail.com or online at https://earthninjas.ca or their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earthninjas
An online Earth Ninja mission statement says “we’re trying to change other’s habits and bringing awareness to all the litter left within our community. We know change starts from the ground up, for our kids, our friends, our neighbors and our planet. We’ve got a passionate team of volunteers behind us, a community by our side and just enough bold hope and trashy determination to make a difference.”
READ ALSO: Earth Ninja founder looking for help to haul Aldergrove’s trash to the dump