Spring allergy season has begun. Where is it worse in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Restaurants' inability to offer their usual dine-in service during much of 2020 may explain why an unusually high amount of food-related litter was found across the country, a new report says.
The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup (GCSC) is an annual program in which volunteers are encouraged to clean up green spaces and other natural areas.
Last year, single-use food and beverage containers made up 26.6 per cent of waste collected through the program – nearly twice as high a percentage as in 2019, before the pandemic.
“We suspect the change may be one of the many implications of COVID-19, including more people ordering restaurant takeaway and consuming more individually packaged foods," GCSC spokesperson Julia Wakeling said in a press release.
While food- and beverage-related litter accounted for a greater percentage of waste uncovered by GCSC than in the past, it wasn't the single largest category of items picked up through the program last year.
That dubious honour goes to cigarette butts and other smoking-related paraphernalia, which comprised nearly 29 per cent of all items collected. There were more than 83,000 cigarette butts among the 42,000 kilograms of waste found and clean up last year.
So-called "tiny trash" – little pieces of plastic and foam – also accounted for a sizeable share of the waste, making up 26.8 per cent of the total haul.
In addition to smoking-related items and tiny trash, the main pieces of litter removed by GCSC volunteers last year included nearly 22,000 food wrappers, more than 17,500 pieces of paper, more than 13,000 bottle caps and more than 10,000 beverage cans.
Discarded face masks and other forms of personal protective equipment were also detected and cleaned up, although not tallied in their own category. PPE waste has been repeatedly cited as a concern by environmental advocates during the pandemic; a robin in Chilliwack, B.C. is the earliest known example of an animal that died due to coronavirus-related litter.
The GCSC is an annual program organized by Ocean Wise and the World Wildlife Fund Canada. Its operations were disrupted by the pandemic as well; only 15,000 volunteers took part in the program last year, versus 85,000 in 2019, due to delays and public health restrictions making large group clean-ups impossible.
Still, there was GCSC participation from every province and the Northwest Territories in 2020. Nearly half of the volunteers who took part were based in B.C., where the program began in 1994.
Data from past GCSC reports was used as part of the research backing Canada's ban on certain single-use plastic items, which is scheduled to take effect by the end of 2021.
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against a trio of social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
King Charles III gave public remarks for Maundy Thursday, addressing the importance of acts of friendship, following his and Catherine, Princess of Wales’ cancer diagnoses.
Peggy is a stout and muscular Staffordshire bull terrier, and Molly is a magpie, an Australian bird best known for swooping on humans during breeding season, not for befriending dogs. But in an emotional video posted online, Peggy’s owners announced that the animals had been separated.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Rainfall warnings of up to 90 millimetres, air quality advisories and other alerts have been issued for seven Canadian provinces, according to the latest forecasts.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.
The owner of an e-bike business says he has doubts police will find the roughly $500,000 worth of product that was stolen from a shipping container last week, while police say he “complicated” their investigation by posting video of the theft.
At least one Costco store in Ottawa has implemented a digital card scanner for member entry, a departure from the traditional in-person card check, in an effort to crack-down on shoppers who have not paid a membership fee.
With the solar eclipse just a week away, it’s time to think about how to safely view the celestial show.