I’ve been noticing a lot more litter around town lately, including some unusual items, and it’s bothering me. I wanted to do something about it, so I decided to use ArcGIS Survey123 to track where all the trash was coming from. I’m still my infancy of tracking, but I found some interesting things. It turns out a lot of the litter is from fast-food places (go figure) and convenience stores. It’s kind of strange how much stuff people just throw on the ground. I mean, there are garbage cans in various locations, and you could always take your trash home.
I’m not sure why people do this. Maybe they’re just lazy, or maybe they don’t care about the environment or where they live. It’s irresponsible to dump large items like mattresses and toilets. We all live here, and we all must deal with the consequences of this behaviour. Its not hard to learn how to properly dispose of items.
I think we should start by calling out the businesses that are contributing the most to the litter problem. Maybe if they see that people are paying attention, they’ll take some action. We can also try to educate people about the importance of keeping our community clean and disposing of waste properly.
I’m still learning about GIS, everything it can do for us. With a little more research, I can probably find even more ways to help keep our town clean and beautiful. It’s great to see initiatives like the Town of Ajax‘s mobile app, AppJax, which includes location-based GIS features. This app allows residents to easily notify staff of issues, access news, view an event calendar, and more. It’s great to see tools like this making it easier for us to take care of our community. We all need to do our part, Durham. Let’s work together to make our community a better place for everyone.
