Reader-submitted Article :
Trash is littered all over Beaver Lake over Easter Holiday

On Saturday April 3rd, 2010 I arose in the morning and took a nice walk with my boyfriend and our dogs to Beaver Lake only to find piles of garbage everywhere and a mass of seagulls screeching as they dined on the waste that was scattered all around this usually beautiful green space. Beaver lake is a natural monument where every weekend hundreds of people come with their small children to play and also walk and play with their dogs. My boyfriend and I visit beaver lake every day while walking our dogs and on this particular morning we were shocked and appalled to find massive amounts of garbage littered everywhere around the park. The receptacles were overflowing and garbage was blowing and scattered everywhere. It looked like a garbage dump- not a green space! What had occurred is that on Friday April 2nd, many flocks of citizens had visited Beaver Lake and held barbeque parties, and due to the holiday there was not only not enough receptacles to hold the garbage, but worse, the following day, there was no one assigned from the city to pass by to clean it up. We were both disgusted by the negligence on part of the city of Montreal to allow such massive amounts of garbage to be left to blow around and stink up the entire park with its nasty filth. As a citizen I was embarrassed as well and I hope that this kind of negligence is never seen again in any of our parks. If we can't keep our green spaces green, what message are we sending to our citizens, future generations and the thousands of tourists that visit Montreal and Beaver lake?