Editor:
This past weekend I took my two children to Brentwood Park Elementary to play and was utterly shocked by the amount of garbage that was strewn around their school grounds. When I walked around the school playground while my children played, I was shocked when I found over 20 used bandages among the wood chips.
Over the past two years, I started the Clean Up Burnaby Campaign and made it my mission to make Burnaby a cleaner and better place. I presented to city council several times about our lacklustre community cleanliness situation and some easy steps Burnaby can take to encourage residents, businesses and property developers to do their part in keeping this municipality clean.
I had seen some pretty bad situations around this city, but what I saw Sunday at this elementary school makes me question the kind of subpar job our elected trustees and school staff are doing.
As a parent, my hope is that the school will go above and beyond when to comes to providing a clean, safe and welcoming learning environment for the students. In Brentwood Park Elementary's case, that strategy appears to be letting the garbage linger until it's chopped into a thousand pieces by a lawnmower, taken away by the wind or washed down a catch basin.
Earlier this year I wrote a letter to the senior administrative staff at School District 41 with simple suggestions on how to provide a clean and safe environment at all their schools. This included making sure sufficient litter disposal bins were available to place the garbage in, as well as encouraging school yard and neighbourhood clean up events where students could contribute positively to this community.
If we're going to be dealing with overcrowded schools for the foreseeable future, the very least we could do is make sure these schools are clean and inviting.
Martin Kendell
📢 SOUND OFF: What has your experience been like with cleanliness in Burnaby? Are parks, playgrounds and public spaces as neat and clean as they could be? What more could the city and school district be doing to help? Share your thoughts — send us a letter.
