City to celebrate Earth Day by tackling litter and planting more trees

BRANTFORD, ON – Earth Day is a worldwide day of environmental activism that has been celebrated annually on April 22 since 1970. To celebrate our successes to date and raise awareness for how our community can contribute to ongoing environmental initiatives, this year the City of Brantford is hosting a community wide clean up event, tree giveaway for residents, and continuing the important conversation around Climate Change.

Let’s Clean Our City

This Earth Day, the City of Brantford is pleased to invite residents to Clean Our City by collecting litter in their neighbourhoods and throughout the community on Friday, April 22, 2022, and Saturday, April 23, 2022. Individuals, groups, neighbourhood associations, or organizations are invited to register online where they can specify their location of clean-up and supplies needed. Residents are encouraged to use their own reusable gloves but clean-up kits that include one large garbage bag, one large clear bag and a pair of gloves will be available for pick-up at the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre during their operating hours from Tuesday, April 19 until Friday, April 22.

Individuals can leave their collected litter at the curbside with their regular garbage pick-up if it is under five bags in total. Groups or larger clean-ups can bring the collected garbage to one of five disposal locations where City of Brantford staff will dispose of it for you.

Prizes will randomly be awarded to registered participants that submit a photo online of their clean-up efforts. Prizes are offered in the following categories:

Individuals can win one of two $50.00 gift cards to the Brantford Farmers’ Market.
Neighbourhood Associations can win one of two $500.00 prizes to be spent on an environmental initiative in their neighbourhood.
Community groups, businesses or other organizations can win one of two $500.00 cash donations to a local charity of their choice.
Participating schools can win one of five countertop composters for their school.

To participate in the Let’s Clean Our Brantford Photo Contest and to receive your clean-up kit, you must register at Brantford.ca/CleanBrantford by 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12, 2022.

Kids are also invited to participate in Healthy Kids, Healthy Planet by practicing the tips on how they can reduce waste and greenhouse gas emissions at Brantford.ca/HealthyKidsHealthyPlanet.

Participants are also encouraged to share photos of their efforts on social media by tagging the City of Brantford and using the hashtags #CleanBrantford #TrashTag

Free Tree Giveaway

To celebrate Earth Day 2022, the City is excited to help homeowners plant more trees in Brantford. To support local climate action, the City is offering 500 FREE trees (18” to 24”) for Brantford residents to plant on their residential property.

Starting at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, April 21, homeowners can register online at brantford.ca/FreeTrees on a first come first serve basis to select their preferred tree species and pickup time. Eight species of trees will be made available with a limit of one free tree per property. Tree pick-up is currently scheduled on Saturday, May 14th and Monday, May 16^th at 1 Sherwood Drive, Brantford. Please note that the free trees must be picked up and planted by residents.

Corporate Climate Change Action Plan

Both the Free Tree Giveaway and Let’s Clean Our City initiatives are consistent with Brantford City Council’s declaration of a climate emergency. The City of Brantford is committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by the year 2050. To meet their objective, the City has developed a Corporate Climate Change Action Plan to reduce emissions from City run activities such as operating City buildings, buses/trucks and streetlights (just to name a few) and to build a long-term strategic plan to reduce community emissions.

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Media Contact:
Kelly Page | Communications Specialist, Communications and Community Engagement
City of Brantford | 519-759-4150 ext. 5779 | kpage@brantford.ca