狐狸视频

The last straw: U of T ecology expert, students create inventory of plastic litter that collects in the Don River

Photo of the U of T Trash Team
The U of T Trash Team created an inventory of the trash collected in the Don River (photo by Chelsea Rochman)

On a hot and muggy July day, Chelsea Rochman, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the 狐狸视频, and a group of students made their way to the mouth of the Don River, armed with gardening gloves, garbage bags and a first aid kit.

Their goal? To create an inventory of the litter collected by a barrier called a boom, meant to pick up floating debris from the Don River to prevent it from making its way into Lake Ontario.

The boom was put in place by Ports Toronto.

鈥淲e are trying to understand how much trash comes down the Don River and enters the lake so that if we do get infrastructure to help stop the debris, we know how much we're stopping,鈥 says Rochman.

Rochman and the team of undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students spent 1陆 hours picking through giant piles of driftwood and trash that accumulated over two weeks.

鈥淚t smelled terrible,鈥 she says. 鈥淭here were flies everywhere. It was definitely a gross, hot afternoon.鈥

Despite the stench, Rochman says the students were enthusiastic about the project. 鈥淚t was cool 鈥 we had fun,鈥 she says.


Wood and trash debris accumulated by the Don River booms (photo by Chelsea Rochman)

Overall, Rochman and her team collected more than 1,400 pieces of litter weighing 31 kilograms, which included 133 litres of Styrofoam and hundreds of plastic items, such as bottle caps, straws, balls and smaller fragments.

鈥淚 thought it was quite a bit considering it's a two-week period buildup,鈥 says Rochman.

The amount of litter collected is just a small sample of what the waste piles contained, but it paints a picture of the harmful items that make their way through Toronto鈥檚 waterways.

Read more about Rochman

Though most of the items were the usual suspects 鈥 there was one strange surprise, she says.

鈥淚t was a perfectly wrapped plastic and fur square and when we uwrapped it and all the animal fur was taken away, it was a beautifully crafted letter in a language we couldn't understand,鈥 she said. 鈥淲e don't know if it was a love letter for a pet that had died or a kind of offering. It was definitely not your typical find.鈥


A sample of some of the smaller items collected by Rochman and her lab (photo by Chelsea Rochman)

Torontonians are becoming more aware of how their consumption can affect the environment 鈥 with groups in the city beginning to take action, lobbying to ban plastics like straws, for example, in bars and restaurants.

And yet, plastic still ends up in Toronto鈥檚 waterways, travelling from ravines to rivers and into the Great Lakes, says Rochman.

鈥淭hese plastic materials that are not caught would go down into the lake and break down into smaller and smaller pieces and become microplastics,鈥 she says. 鈥淟ittle bits of plastic enter into our entire aquatic food chain, and from my research we find they can have impacts on the wildlife that live there.

"For us, it's important to think about how we can stop it.鈥

The two Don River booms are 鈥減retty good but not perfect鈥 at collecting this plastic debris, says Rochman, but 鈥渢hey're not as effective as they could be.鈥

Rochman is currently working with Ports Toronto to develop more effective infrastructure to capture the trash coming down the Don River.

For Torontonians looking to play a part in cleaning up Toronto鈥檚 waterways, Rochman suggests heading to the to start a new initiative or join an existing one. Her group, which she calls the U of T Trash Team, also hosts regular cleanups.

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