‘An easy way to give the world a hug’: N.S. man tracks the trash he picks up to inspire others

Crystal Garrett meets a man who's passionate about keeping his community clean.

A Nova Scotia man is tracking nearly every piece of trash he picks up with the goal of inspiring others to follow his lead.

Luke MacDonald has been hired by the Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission to help keep streets clean for six hours a week.

He says he does it because it’s “an easy way to give the world a hug.”

MacDonald worked at the Aerobics First shoe store in Halifax and didn’t like the fact that customers and staff would walk in the store off a dirty street.

“I just started to pick up the litter on the street, so I’ve ended up counting that data and I counted the amount of times I did it and I’m at about 340 times I’ve done it individually… I just think it’s cool data to collect,” he says.

MacDonald posts photos of the trash he collects on his “Luke Litter Picker” page as a sort of brand audit.

“I could tell you that there’s a certain amount of plastic that I pick up, a certain amount of paper, the amount of cigarette butts, branded items like Tim Hortons, as an example,” he says.

“The Tim Hortons owner in my neighbourhood is a very good friend of mine, he comes up and picks up for me, so when you look at my data you’ll see 15,000 pieces of Tim Hortons picked up, that’s because he helps me.”

MacDonald picks up litter in all weather conditions.

“I come (to downtown Dartmouth) with goggles on, it’s -20, it’s awesome, it’s really fun. I got the gear, I worked at a pretty good store,” he says.

MacDonald also uses his connections in the shoe store world to help people in need.

“We also do a shoe program out of Aerobics First called Fitted Forward, and so what we’ve done is New Balance helps us out with their imperfect shoes and customers from Aerobics First will drop off their gently-used shoes at the store and I’ll go deliver those to homeless folks or organizations that deal directly with homeless,” he says.

MacDonald says he doesn’t keep the money from the refundable recycles he finds.

“I’ve had a few talks with folks that sort of called me out on picking up the cans and things that like and so what we do is I take them up to Canadian Recycling and then that money goes to Bella who is our street outreach person and it also gets doubled along the way and so we’re putting that money from cans and bottles directly back into the system,” he says.

The hardest item to pick up is cigarette butts because they are small and there’s so many.

“But I have a pretty good sweeping technique. I can do 2,000 or 3,000 in a morning,” MacDonald says. “I love doing it… get out there and do it.”

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