The 20 Minute Makeover, Urban Edition
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.21.06
Toronto looks awful this time of year, as a winter's worth of Tim Horton cups and garbage bags thaw out or the ground and the air is redolent of melting dog poop. It used to be the City's job to keep it clean, but the city doesn't do anything very well or thoroughly any more. Over sanitation worker objections, (hey, thats our job!) Mayor David Miller (seen last in the green issue of Vanity Fair) organized the 20 minute makeover, where at 2:00 today we are all supposed to go outside and clean things up.
Tomorrow is Community Cleanup Day, and all kinds of groups are picking up brooms to help out- We hear that the Royal Society of Adventurology has organized a Scavenger Hunt- " tea, small talk, and savory comestibles will be offered in exchange for a moderate yield of abandoned materials (garbage) repossessed from the park grounds." at 2:00 in Trinity Bellwoods Park.
It would be nice if we did not have to do these things, if our government still provided the services that we pay our taxes for. In its absence, it is wonderful that citizens are picking up the slack and turning it into a party. Does this happen anywhere else? ::Toronto
amazing, Canadians - civic duty and social responsibility on a large scale. Let us know how it turns out.
well, there's the oregon beach cleanup every year:
http://www.solv.org/programs/spring_beach_cleanup.asp
Just got back from our 20-minute cleanup, 100km down the road from Toronto in Waterloo.
Our office (of 3 people) did our 20 minutes as well. We covered 2 blocks and picked up 3 shopping bags worth of garbage. Not sure if anyone would notice the difference, but it seems like if the event was really embraced by the people of Toronto the results would be effective. I was shocked by number of cigarette butts on the ground! It seems smokers still exist and they don't know how to use an ashtray!