Rotary Great Lakes Watershed Cleanup

 

 

The Great Lakes Watershed Cleanup initiative is an effort that has grown from a District 7090 service project covering a small portion of Lake Ontario and Erie to a multi-district plan to focus Rotarians’ attention to all 5 of the Great Lakes and streams and waterways feeding them.  Our goal is to make this the single largest cleanup event ever planned and coinciding with Earth Day 2021 on the Great Lakes Watershed.  The Great Lakes contains almost 20% of the world’s fresh water and is arguably the largest source of fresh water on the planet.  It borders 8 States and 2 Provinces and has 9,577 miles (15,323 kilometers) of shoreline.  So far 15 Districts, 100’s of Clubs and thousands of Rotary volunteers have agreed to participate.  We will be joining over one billion people worldwide working on projects together in their communities on Earth Day.

 

Trash, plastics and other littered items plague our waterways.  This trash posses a threat to terrestrial and aquatic life, often becomes microplastics and harmful toxins and pollutes one of the most precious and limited natural resources.  Shopping carts, tires, furniture, trash, foam cups, plastic containers and aluminum cans contaminate our waterways and greenways.  More than 22 million pounds (10 million kilograms) of trash and plastic pollution ends up in the Great Lakes each year.

 

Cleanups from numerous NGO’s, community groups and individual volunteers are critical to reducing the amount of garbage that collects in our watersheds each year.  In order to track our success, the second goal will be to tabulate the amount of debris collected from each of the individual cleanup events.  And the final and most important goal will be to educate the public to the importance of protecting our waterways and to instil a sense of stewardship towards our Great Lakes.

 

The deadline for completion of Great Lakes Watershed events is being extended from Saturday April 24^th to Tuesday June 1^st. 

 

This collaborative work project has generated much excitement and enthusiasm among the planners and is reflective of the upcoming addition of The Environment as a new area of focus of Rotary International.  It also reflects our desire to be People of Action and to promote the good work of Rotary.

 

 

The Great Lakes Watershed spans 2 Provinces, 8 States.  There will be involvement from 18 Districts in Canada and the USA, approximately 900 clubs and 27,000 Rotarians and Rotaractors!  Rotary and Rotaract Clubs across the Watershed are coordinating and organizing events to support this initiative.

 

 

 

Frank Adamson, Canada 
Governor, District 7090
Rotary Club of Fonthill, Ontario, Canada
905-892-0200, fadamson@vaxxine.com

 

Robert Burns, USA
Rotary Club of Trenton, MI., U,S.A.
District 6400
Friends of the Detroit River
rlb315@comcast.net 

 

For additional information on filling out and sending back the event cleanup metric data collection sheet please contact: event coordinator Kaylee Peterson at pete1174@msu.edu