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Over 20,000 Canadians are ready to clean up our shorelines. Are you one of them?

3 minute read
By TD Bank Group
• Mar. 31, 2009
- Registration for the 16th annual TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is now open and over 20,000 Canadians have already registered to clean our shorelines from September 19-27, 2009 TORONTO and VANCOUVER, March 31 /CNW/ - A bowling pin, a parking ticket machine, an MP3 player, a parasol, a cross country ski - and 322,780 cigarette butts. These are just some of the items found on Canada's shorelines during last year's TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. Registration for this year's cleanup is now open and over 20,000 Canadians have already registered to remove litter from nearly 600 shoreline sites, and there are still plenty of shorelines out there that need to be cleaned. "Cigarette butts, plastic bags and bottles, cans, food wrappers - you name it, it's on our shorelines," said Mary Desjardins, Executive Director, TD Friends of the Environment Foundation. "Many Canadians are dedicated to recycling and properly discarding their trash but our shorelines still suffer from the actions of others. Our annual cleanup helps to put the monumental task of removing litter from Canada's shorelines into perspective. Spending an hour to clean up your community can make a huge difference when we do it together." "Plastic debris found floating in our waterways and on our shorelines can be fatal to marine life through ingestion or strangling," said Dr. John Nightingale, President, Vancouver Aquarium. "It's estimated that in excess of 100,000 marine mammals a year are killed by entanglement from plastic six-pack rings, fishing lines, nets and other stringy hazards." The results are in for the 2008 TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup and it was another record breaking year: 2008 2007 Number of Registrants 63,491 52,263 Number of Registered Sites 1,531 1,240 Weight of Litter Removed (Kilograms) 135,467 87,489 Number of Garbage Bags Collected 12,915 13,473 Distanced Cleaned (Kilometres) 2,152 1,772 "We're thrilled with the continued and growing support our cleanup receives from Canadians, but there's much more to be done," added Dr. Nightingale. "Canada is home to the world's largest freshwater supply. We need to keep our shorelines clean in order to preserve the beauty of our country and to ensure the health and welfare of our wildlife, plants and other marine life." The TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is one of the largest cleanups in the world. The national conservation initiative of the Vancouver Aquarium encourages Canadians to have a positive impact on their local environment by removing harmful litter from their local shorelines, including ponds, streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. Winner of Imagine Canada's 12th Annual Canadian Business and Community Partnership Awards, the 2009 TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup begins on International Coastal Cleanup Day, September 19, and runs to September 27, 2009. To register, please visit www.tdgcsc.ca. About the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup TD Bank Financial Group has been a proud sponsor of the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, a Vancouver Aquarium conservation program, through its TD Friends of the Environment Foundation for more than 13 years. The Cleanup began in 1994 as a small beach cleanup with four employees from the Vancouver Aquarium who wanted to participate in the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup. In 2008, a record-breaking 63,491 Canadians registered for the national cleanup and removed 135,467 kilograms of garbage from 1,531 sites spanning a collective distance of 2,152 kilometres. Now in its 16th year, this year's TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup takes place from September 19-27, 2009. For more information or to register please visit www.tdgcsc.ca. For further information: Jacqueline Burns, TD Bank Financial Group, (416) 308-0177, Jacqueline.burns@td.com; Jean Fong, Vancouver Aquarium, 1-800-375-8776, shorelinemedia@vanaqua.org

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