Man keeps streets of Dartmouth clean, one piece of litter at a time

A man known as ‘Luke the Litter Picker’ has made it his mission to clean up downtown Dartmouth.

He’s known as Luke the litter picker, but his passion for a cleaner Dartmouth, N.S., is contagious.

“I retired from Aerobics First on Oct. 1, 2024, and I immediately joined the gym Blended Athletics because I wanted to stay in really good shape,” Luke MacDonald said.

“Also, I knew I was going to be picking up a lot of litter in my retirement. I did it a lot from the store in order to sort of calm some anxieties and stuff like that. I found it a very good way to regulate myself before a long day at work. It also really connected the store to the community.”

He went down Quinpool Road picking up litter and realized he had work to do.

“I walked the two kilometres or 2.5 km, 345 times picking up litter,” he said. “I captured it all on an app called litterati. I was able to keep the data on it because I’m a little bit like that. And I knew at some point there’d be a trend towards this new sport called plogging, which was introduced to the world by Erik Ahlstrom of Sweden in around 2015.

“It’s just a Swedish term for picking up litter and moving. It doesn’t necessarily have to be running. It can be biking, walking. But you’re purposely going out to give the world a hug, and at the same time, you end up giving yourself a hug.

“So, I thought, ‘What better way to do it, then go to my old hometown and work for Tim, who I’ve known for many years and work with the Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission (DDBC) as my new outlet?’ So, this is sort of my new Aerobics First.”

Something the DDBC welcomed with open arms.

“Luke came to us and he said, ‘I want to I want to get downtown Dartmouth clean,’” said Tim Rissesco, executive director of the commission. “He’s been working with us now for over a year. And he’s incredible because he comes from being a small business owner and he has a passion for litter abatement.

“He’s worked well with our both our members and then he has an innate ability to connect with people in the street to convince them to stop littering. He does it through a friendly disposition and little guerrilla tactics that he uses, like putting little buckets of sand around where people are smoking to get them to put their butts there.”

MacDonald calls it a war of attrition, one he plans on winning.

He also picks up litter to help with his anxiety, something that was triggered on April 30, 2015, when he went for a spring run.

“I don’t really know why. I know anxiety and that stuff just generally. I’ve done programs about anxiety for youth and things like that,” he said, reflecting on the anxiety he felt seeing the streets covered in litter once the snow had melted.

“But it was the first time I was stopped in my tracks, and I recognized what it was. And I just said, ‘I’m going to do something about it.’

“And I knew it could be a trend. And I also knew that it would likely be good for the store if we added this to running events. So essentially, what we did is we partnered with the Blue Nose Marathon to pre-clean all the courses and then we started to post-clean all the courses.”

As a runner, MacDonald knows the kind of litter marathons can accumulate.

“Marathons and running is a notoriously oil-based business. And so there’s a little bit of guilt going on with that, especially with these new super shoes, you know, $400 shoes that last, you know, 20 runs,” he said.

“It’s just a sad situation. I can’t control their lives. But I’m more than happy to pick up on their behalf. Generally speaking, I think the recycling opportunities and the education that the city puts out is phenomenal. I work closely with the Solid Waste team.”

He also tracks his routes and what he picks up, though knowing the full amount of litter is not that easy.

“On my app I have 195,600 pieces that are all specifically tagged, and that would be about that would probably be about 50 or 60 per cent of what I’ve actually picked up,” he said.

“And I know I’ve also picked up, just over 20,000 pieces of Tim Horton’s litter, which sounds high and it is proportionately. But the fact of the matter is, Tim Horton’s is a significant sponsor.”

His local Tim Horton’s in Cole Harbour supports his work.

“He’s fairly infectious,” said Rissesco. “We see other people out cleaning up litter as well. There’s a there’s a guy up in the Harbor View neighborhood that credits Luke with inspiring him. So now when he takes his kids to daycare every morning, he has a picker and a garbage bag, and he’s picking up garbage every morning.”

That father is Jesse Sharratt, who has gone even beyond picking up litter.

“A little plug to Atlas Atlantic, Jesse Sharratt built out very significant website and software that’s built into a plugging platform,” said MacDonald. “That’s going to be sort of unleashed over the next year or so.”

It will be a way to get people involved who can’t necessarily physically pick up garbage.

“It’s just been an incredible year with Luke,” said Rissesco. “We’re looking forward to many more years.”

“Just do it. It’s way more fun than anybody thinks,” said MacDonald. “You meet a lot of people.”

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page