Alberta Views recently published an article by Lise Mayne about the plastic litter left by snow clearing machines. You can view the complete article PDF courtesy of Alberta Views. They do not list links to their past editions until Dec 1 2023 so we thank them for their generosity.

The article is titled “PLASTIC BLUES, One Albertan’s quest to stop government-sanctioned littering.” ERVCC has been collecting data on Blue Bristle litter for several years. One of our members, Jaynne Carre, first started finding the bristles doing shoreline (in our case river bank) cleanups. Part of the clean-up effort was to document every piece of litter found. As the years passed, more and more bristles started showing up everywhere. When Jaynne started consistently listing these bristles on our data forms, the shoreline people wanted to know what they were, so Jaynne sent samples. She was finding them in storm outfalls and on the Accidental Beach (island) in Edmonton so she knew they were getting into the river. Since then ERVCC members have collected and reported numbers to Jaynne who keeps a running list. If you find bristles you can use a form we will add here in the coming weeks.

Waste Free Edmonton and ERVCC worked with NAIT capstone students to find solutions but Edmonton’s response fell short of the student recommendations and the problem persists. The city says they are working to educate operators to do more regular maintenance but our data does not show any improvement.

Consider helping us gather better data by reporting any bristles you find on the form we will soon provide.

In the meantime maybe we will ask the city to fine the city for violating their own littering bylaws? We must “Litterally” stop passing externalities downstream. Plastics don’t belong in Edmonton’s River Valley.

ERVCC was once asked if we had any swag or an online store for branded merchandise. We don’t. Okay, with the exception of these ERVCC pins made out of blue bristles and recycled beads tied together with local plant fibre. ERVCC #swagfree #wastefree

You will see below not all “blue bristles” are blue. If you see blue, black, gray, or orange bristles please pick them up and let us know.

One sweepings worth of blue Bristles

These bristles were found on Tawatina Bridge after a sweeping machine had passed through. They were picked up because otherwise the plastic litter would end up blowing into the river below the bridge. If you see Bristles please pick them up.