'A sight for sore eyes': Spring clean up efforts underway across Regina
As snow melts around Regina, garbage that has accumulated throughout the winter is appearing at a quick pace.
In the city’s North Central neighbourhood, White Pony Lodge is making an effort to combat the trash left behind by winter.
For the next three weeks, weather permitting, the community run organization is leading neighbourhood clean ups on Thursday evenings.
“Thursday evenings - before garbage pickups - we’ll be going around and going through a few different alleys, picking up as much garbage as we can, pulling out bins and making sure they’re not over full,” Leah O’Malley, the chair of the board of White Pony Lodge, said.
White Pony Lodge is partnering with Regina Dumping and Hauling and the North Central Community Association to clear garbage of all sizes away from the north central area.
O’Malley said she hopes it will make the community safer.
“There’s always things in the garbage that you don’t want lying around and flying around all the time,” O’Malley said.
Beyond that, it’s about making the neighbourhood feel more comfortable.
“We want to improve the look of the neighbourhood at the same time. I think it’s really important for us to point out and to prove that our neighbourhood is worth caring for,” O’Malley said.
On May 6, White Pony Lodge plans to host an entire day of volunteer clean up with any other community organizations and businesses that want to be involved.
Although White Pony Lodge focuses its efforts in one specific area, other parts of the city are seeing their share of trash left by winter, too.
The Saskatchewan Landlord Association said it’s the busiest time of year for its members, as more people move out of properties or gut their rentals during their spring cleaning efforts.
It’s landlords who are on the hook for ensuring properties remain tidy.
“It becomes a sight for sore eyes pretty quickly,” Cameron Choquette, the CEO of the Saskatchewan Landlord Association, said.
“Under the Clean Communities Bylaw for the city, ticketing offences are going to property owners and not tenants. Without consistent babysitting of properties, landlords will typically discover some of that trash that was covered by snow over the winter.”
In order for all residents to keep their properties and neighbourhoods as tidy as possible, Choquette recommends putting garbage in its proper place.
“If that’s the blue bin or the black bin, or in the case of mattresses or larger household items that shouldn’t go in the black bin, they go directly to the landfill,” he said.
“We need tenants to really comply which those property-specific rules so that excess garbage doesn’t need to be collected because unfortunately every time we call another garbage truck to come and service a property, those are excess costs over and above the traditional service charges, which ultimately get paid for by the tenant.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Galen Weston pushes back on 'misguided criticism' of Loblaw as boycott begins
Loblaw chairman Galen Weston, as well as the company's new chief executive, pushed back on what they called 'misguided criticism' of the grocer as a boycott against the company gains steam online.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
'Giant-killer' Kazushi Kimura to race in Kentucky Derby this weekend: 'I'm representing Canada and Japan'
Six years ago, at age 18, Kazushi Kimura left his home and family behind in Hokkaido, Japan to chase a dream. This weekend, he'll ride in the Kentucky Derby.
Quebec premier asks police to dismantle camp at McGill University
Quebec Premier Francois Legault has called on the police to dismantle the pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the lower field of McGill University's downtown campus in Montreal.
Orangutan observed treating wound using medicinal plant in world first
Scientists working in Indonesia have observed an orangutan intentionally treating a wound on their face with a medicinal plant, the first time this behavior has been documented.
TD Bank hit with $9.2M penalty after failing to report suspicious transactions
Canada’s financial-crime watchdog has levied a $9.2-million penalty against The Toronto-Dominion Bank for non-compliance with money laundering and terrorist financing measures as the bank also faces compliance investigations in the U.S.
Doctors concerned about potential spread of bird flu in Canada
H5N1 or avian flu has been detected at dozens of U.S. dairy farms and Canadian experts are urging surveillance on our side of the border too.