Litter on trail near Halifax West 'looks terrible,' says resident

Vera Wood walks along the tree-lined path on Thomas Raddall Drive daily. The 82-year old is one of a number of people living in the area concerned about the amount of garbage piling up, especially near Halifax West High School.

"It's appalling. I want people to get out here and clean this up. It looks terrible," Wood said.

The walking trail that runs alongside green space at the corner of Regency Park and Thomas Raddall Drive is lined with trash and Wood said it's getting out of hand.

Garbage in the ditches

The worst offenders appear to be people ducking out for lunch at nearby fast food restaurants and throwing take-out waste in the ditches bordering the parking spots at the top of the hill near the high school.

The melting snow has revealed an ugly mess of a litter-lined roadside and ditches that stretch from one end of the parking lot to the other.

Dozens of coffee cups, french fry containers, milk cartons and even full garbage and recyclingbags, that have been tossed to the side of the road only a few yards away from empty garbage cans.

'Adults do it as well'

Hope Holman lives and walks in the neighbourhood regularly. She said the garbage situation isdisturbing.

While she stops short of pinning it entirely on the students, she thinks the school does bear some responsibility.

"Adults do it as well, but I think the school should have clean up days so that all of this is gathered up," Holman said.

Halifax West High School's principalTim Simony saidthe build up of garbage isa problem that goes back at least ten years. He admits that part of the issue is the size of the student population.

Not entirely fault of students

"How many of them are littering is probably a relatively small number who are doing it frequently, rather than lots and lots of the 1,500 students," said Simony.

He saidstudents are not completely to blame.

"It was my experience when I was a vice principal here 10 years ago that there was small pieces of debris coming from the construction sites when these condos around us were built," he said.

"So I think geography as well as the students is playing a role."

Clean up day coming

Simony also made it clear the parking spaces on Thomas Raddall Drive are not on school property, which makes enforcement difficult.

Still, Simony agrees with Holman that keeping the neighbourhood clean is all part of being a good neighbour.

"We just try to reinforce good expectations and ideas about what stewardship means when you're coming to a community and an area," he said.

Halifax West High School organizes two school clean up days in the fall and spring. This year'sspring clean up day will beApril 21.