With the spring season well underway and most of Thunder Bay’s snow melted, volunteers around the city are taking up an annual tradition to help clean all the litter left behind over the winter.
EcoSuperior’s Spring Up to Clean Up event is in its 30th year of mobilizing city residents to make their surroundings a little cleaner over the month of May.
“It’s really great to pitch in and see so many different people out just positively affecting the community and getting everything nice and ready for the summertime,” says Waterfront District BIA (Business Improvement Area) Board Chair John Murray.
Murray says it’s important for the community to keep and maintain a clean downtown core.
“It’s just a great sense of pride when you walk down the streets and sort of know that yourself and your whole community have helped contribute to make this beautiful streetscape,” he remarks.
Every year, EcoSuperior works with the City of Thunder Bay to recruit volunteers to the campaign, and distribute garbage bags and gloves to those interested in participating in the cleanup.
Lee Amelia, the Coordinator of Waste Diversion for the city, is encouraging residents to reach out and volunteer on the EcoSuperior website to “get some cleanup supplies and host a cleanup of your own in your neighbourhood.”
Suphala Chandorkar, EcoSuperior’s Rethinking Waste Coordinator, encourages volunteers to think about the city cleanup effort as more than just a once-a-year type of thing.
“It’s more about a behavioural change,” she explains. “Deep down, this is about developing an ecophily — a relationship of love and kinship towards our natural systems, being aware that every action of ours has larger implications.”
Spring Up to Clean Up recruits about 10,000 volunteers each year throughout the city, from neighbourhood groups, families, school classrooms, and individuals.
So far, the event has signed on about 6,000 participants for 2026.
