Silver Lake

I found a giant rubber tub floating in Waterloo’s Silver Lake and spend about an hour on this lovely, warm spring day filling it with Styrofoam and other plastics floating in the lake.

In that short time I had a group of three municipal bylaw officers come to check on me as I was picking up items from the shore, followed soon after by another city-hired security guard in a bullet-proof vest. They did encourage me to continue my cleanup, but the enforcement felt a bit intense for a Friday afternoon lake cleanup.

The folks in the park were very supportive: “We were going to come help you if they didn’t leave you alone.” All in all, I filled the plastic tub with about 15kg of debris and picked up 16 aluminium cans and 13 plastic bottles as well.

Silver Lake in Waterloo drains through Laurel Creek directly into the Grand River. The Laurel Creek passes through a busy urban area and accumulates a significant amount of debris, especially after spring storms.