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A historic moment in cleanliness

Tales from the dump
with Walt Humphries
Friday, May 2, 2008

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On Wednesday, April 23, 2008, at 5 p.m., history was made.

I think the city should order a bronze plaque and set it up on Franklin Avenue to commemorate, venerate and memorialize this monumental event.

Future historians, humanitarian researchers and ecological activists will laud this as the turning point and the impetus for making Yellowknife, the capital city of the Northwest Territories, a completely litter-free zone.

Perhaps I am overstating the significance of the event, just a tad, but it was nonetheless a remarkable event and it may indeed be a turning point. A group of citizens, of their own free will, with no coercion, bribes or payment for volunteering, gathered and went out on a cold and windy night to clean up litter in the downtown core. Their actions made a noticeable difference and it also proved to all that it can be done. People can make a difference.

Paul Falvo and Adrian Bell, who were the organizers of the event, should get some sort of citizenship award for having the computation to actually take action. I found it ironic that after the event, that night on CBC's Northbeat program, there was an item saying the city has hired a consultant to study a report on litter written a couple of years ago and to come up with some recommendations. While the city dithers, waffles and wavers, hums and haws, back pedals and spends endless amounts of money on endless studies, which usually accomplish little; people were actually out there doing something proactive.

To reiterate a rather simple plan of mine, if people picked up a mere five pieces of litter every time they went out, in no time Yellowknife would be litter free. Picking up litter is one step, stopping people from littering is also an important move. Littering, whether it be a disposable coffee cup, a cigarette butt or a piece of chewing gum, should be sociably unacceptable and it is also against the law.

People need to lobby city hall, the territorial government and the federal government into taking litter, the ecology and the environment seriously. In my mind, they have all abdicated and completely ignored their responsibilities to manage litter. There are laws against individuals littering but the city seems to completely ignore them. There are laws for companies and businesses to keep places clean but the city refuses to enforce them. There are laws on the books to force companies doing construction to keep sites clean yet the city refuses to deal with them. The various levels of government collect taxes to provide services and enforce laws and when they aren't doing what they are collecting taxes for, maybe they should be sued.

There are countries in Europe which are spotless compared to most places in Canada and there are communities in the North much cleaner than Yellowknife. So, if the people want a litter and doggie doo-doo free environment, it can happen by their actions and by forcing governments and politicians into taking it seriously.

On April 23, 2008, a group of citizens took matters into their own hands and made a difference. Let's make Wednesday litter-free day. A day, when ordinary people can make an effort to solve the problem, either at lunch hour or after work, by picking up a few pieces of litter. Maybe it is the start of bigger and better things to come. Maybe it will be heralded as the start of a litter-free movement for Yellowknife, then the NWT, then all of Canada. History has to start somewhere, why not here.

- Walt Humphries is a well-known Yellowknife artist and prospector