Western University community takes to Thames River for clean-up

Clean-up near Thames River in London, Ont. (Courtesy Brendon Samuels)

More than 40 people from the Western University community participated in a clean-up Sunday near the Thames River.

The group spent the day picking up trash they found on-campus and along the river into Gibbons Park.

“The pollution that ends up in the river is really harmful for people downstream, such as First Nations,” said Brendon Samuels, the sustainability coordinator of Western University Society of Graduate Students. “So this event in particular focused on cleaning up fishing line as well as other trash.

Samuels said during the group efforts they found the most common trash they collected were PPE like single use facemasks as well as food wrappers and coffee cups.

Samuels hopes Sunday’s efforts will encourage others to pick up any litter they may see lying around and adds if others want to get involved in local environmental clean-up initiatives they can head to antlerriverrally.ca.