Frontenac Litter Festival

Stephen Dukoff | May 11, 2017

From what I keep reading in the papers, Frontenac County is keen to market itself to visitors from outside our borders.  The separate townships are coming up with tourism hooks based on geographic features that define them, like cat-tails, dark skies or limestone outcroppings.  

However,  what everyone has so far overlooked is the ubiquity of ditch litter.  I'd like to propose a Frontenac Litter Festival, where we can market the area based on the colourful accumulation of roadside waste products.  We can invite visitors to come in early spring to enjoy the colours before the grass covers it up for another year.  The reds of the Tim Hortons cups are really vibrant now, as are the yellows of McDonalds.  There are also the variety of colours from the logos on pop and beer cans and bottles.  Let's not forget the festive glitter of the silver wrappings from candy bars and cigarette packs!  While a price on grocery bags means that there are fewer of these ornaments  adorning our roadsides now, there are still enough left from past years to add their kinetic flapping in the bushes and tree branches.  There's currently a particularly stunning display on the Loughborough/Portland Boundary Road.   And the uncollected recycling blown out of blue boxes has added another deep dimension--the vibrant whites of styrofoam meat packages, the translucent reflections from plastic clamshells. The good news is that this stuff costs the township nothing--the good citizens of the county just keep adding to it for free!  And, what doesn't get chopped up by the township ditch mowers to reappear as glitter next year, just remains to be added to year after year.  So, with any luck at all, the festival's main attraction will just get bigger and better year after year!

As a final bonus, this stuff is thoughtfully being diverted from our landfills, extending their lifespan.  So, help put Frontenac County on the map.  Toss that stuff out of your cars and trucks and help our economy by attracting tourists to come and see the Litter Festival!  How about InFrontenac InGarbage InSpring as a tagline?  I can't wait to add the remains of my next fast food take-out lunch to the community effort!