Annual Litter Index reveals Winnipeg’s messiest streets

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This article was published 31/03/2015 (3305 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Source: Take Pride Winnipeg! Annual Litter Index

Transcona and downtown could use a hand or two cleaning up after a messy winter.

Those areas of Winnipeg were identified as the city’s most littered neighbourhoods, results from the Take Pride Winnipeg! Litter Index released Tuesday found.

The community-awareness group ranked 12 different areas of the city in terms of winter cleanliness on a scale of 1 to 4, with the lower end of the range indicating no litter. A 4 rating would indicate a street that needs a handful of people to help clean it up.

Transcona earned a score of 2.56 on the index. Downtown earned 2.46 and the northeast corner of the city 2.45. The cleanest areas of the city were St. Boniface (1.85), the south (1.95) and Fort Rouge/Fort Garry (1.97).

The Winnipeg litter data was collected last week, three weeks after the winter snow melt revealed the litter issue.

The city average was 2.19, a slightly messier number than the 2.14 registered in April 2014.

Take Pride Winnipeg! executive director Tom Ethans said there is no specific explanation as to why Winnipeg gathers so much litter over the winter.

“For some streets, it’s a lot of traffic,” Ethans said Tuesday. “There are a number of areas where there’s some new-home construction. If you drive down south Kenaston from Bishop Grandin to the Perimeter, a lot of that litter is new-home construction.”

City roads and streets with the most litter include Reenders Drive, the McDermot Avenue and Bannatyne Avenue areas west of the Exchange, Sherbrook Street, McGillivray Boulevard and sections of the Perimeter Highway, specifically in the south end of the city near new-home development.

“It’s not just the north side of the city that’s a problem,” Ethans said. “The other problem is that if people see litter on the side of the road, they tend to maybe litter themselves because it’s already there. What’s another piece of litter going to do?”

The winter litter index is a precursor to Take Pride’s annual spring cleanup of the city. The organization will provide free garbage bags to any community group, family, business or school that wishes to join the Team Up to Clean Up initiative.

To date, about 2,500 volunteers have registered for spring cleanups in their neighbourhoods. To register a group to help out with your neighbourhood sweep and scrub, visit the Take Pride Winnipeg! website (takepride.mb.ca).