Who we are
Our initiative
Great Lake Cleaners started with two people, a bike trailer, and a stretch of river that needed attention — plus a kid who turned out to be very good at spotting shopping carts under two feet of water. We’re not a big organization, and we welcome community support to help us tackle plastic pollution in our local watersheds. We are cleaning local rivers and shores by foot and paddle because what enters our water reaches our Great Lakes and pollutes all along the way. We are located in Guelph, Ontario.
Tudor
Tudor started Great Lake Cleaners in March 2026, though he was picking up tires, bottles, and other debris from the Speed River long before. He loves the hands-on water work: balancing tires on a paddleboard, wading into the river to reach submerged plastic sheets, or wrestling sunken shopping carts.
After each cleanup, he writes the logs, updates the visualizations, and writes for our Substack. When he’s not in the river, he’s cycling, hiking, or working his day job developing IoT solutions.
Favourite find so far: A beaver lodge he initially mistook for a garbage pile.
Julia
Julia has a Master of Environment and Sustainability (Western University) and experience with non-profit organizations. She taught environmental citizenship to college students for eight years. Julia is putting environmental citizenship into action each week. She invites others to engage as upstream citizens by cleaning up their own local waterways. Julia also has a great eye for design and created the Great Lake Cleaners logo and crew shirts.
When she’s not cleaning up a local stream, she’s planting a pollinator corridor, swimming, or walking with our dog, and supporting disability inclusion at work.
Favourite find so far: merganser family traveling up the Speed River near our cleanup site.
The rest of the crew
There are also neighbours, friends, and passersby who’ve picked up trash from a river or shoreline. Your help is invaluable in keeping our watershed healthy.
Join us
If you’d like to be part of it, there’s nothing formal to join. Clean a park or shore near you and submit your cleanup. You can also join our crew to learn about upcoming cleanups.
Contact us
Great Lake Cleaners
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
info@greatlakecleaners.ca