Jim Bellingham moved to Elliot Lake more than six weeks ago and has enjoyed some of the pristine spots and trails along the beautiful lake the city is named after. But on some of his nature walks he has noticed that careless people have dumped trash, littering some of these spots.
It was on a recent hike with his dog Lady to a small beach just south of Elliot Lake’s Spine Beach that he discovered a disgusting mess.
“Lady and I took a walk down to that other beach and the beach was a real mess,” he recalled of the trash he discovered. “There was human (excrement) on the sand there and all kinds of beer cans and there were probably 30 Tim Hortons cups on the beach and a plastic folding table with the legs collapsed.”
He was upset about the mess and later his wife Diane discovered a post on Facebook about it. The post asked those who had made the mess to go and clean it up. He followed that up with a letter to ElliotLakeToday. His idea was the more the incident surfaced on social media, those who were involved would clean it up or, at least stop making messes.
He is unaware of whether the beach has been cleaned up, but said if he could get a few people together to do a clean-up he would happily assist.
“I seriously thought about taking some bags and going out there but there was quite a bit,” he added.” It was a big job for one person to go in there and do it.”
The next day he took another walk to Slipper Lake. Just before the lake there is an open area posted by the city warning people that dumping is prohibited. The sign states anyone caught dumping is subject to a $300 fine. There he discovered a pile of discarded drywall and other material someone had dumped.
“There was a pile of drywall in there that wasn’t there the week before and concrete from a concrete porch and wrought iron railing,” Bellingham, who is a member of the local hiking club, said.
“Somebody has dropped pre-engineered flooring in the bush,” he said of another find further down Slipper Lake road.
“Some people have been going in and dumping brush, but brush is going to eventually decompose, but this stuff isn’t,” he said of the trash.
When he and his wife went to Spine Beach when they first moved here, he said the beach was quite pristine. He’s seen that change since that time with cigarette butts being discarded there.
“Hopefully it will spike somebody’s conscience about cleaning up,” he said about any publicity surrounding illegal dumping or discarding trash.