Busy parks like Darlington Provincial Park get hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.
Although most park visitors plan for a no-waste visit or dispose of their waste responsibly, sadly parks are often left with plenty of litter to clean up.
Garbage dumped into a lake or elsewhere can also wash up along park shorelines, adding to the park’s litter.
Ontario Parks is teaming up with Earth Rangers to offer a park cleanup this year!
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Join us at Darlington Provincial Park
Date: Sunday, June 15, 2025
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Location: cleaning will be centralized throughout the Day Use #2 area and along the beach. Meet park staff at the Park Store — parking is available at the Day Use #2 parking lot.
What to expect: staff will present an introductory information session, then groups will disperse around the area.
Garbage bags and gloves will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring their own gloves if they have them.
For more details, please go to the park’s events calendar.
Giving back
Earth Rangers is a charity that empowers kids to become environmental leaders at home and in their communities.
If you or your child are already an Earth Ranger, this is a great opportunity to meet the requirements for your Shoreline Cleanup mission.
Interested in signing up to be an Earth Ranger? Download the app on Google Play or on the Apple Store!
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Celebrating our past events
In the fall of 2024, Ontario Parks and Earth Rangers teamed up to host two litter clean-up events. These events invited families to Bronte Creek Provincial Park and Sibbald Point Provincial Park to participate in two litter clean up events.
These parks see many visitors throughout the summer and fall. With so many folks visiting, it can be a challenge to keep parks litter-free year-round.
While visitors are often careful, litter can still accumulate. By bringing out over 70 volunteers in the fall, these parks were able to cover a lot of ground and collect significant amounts of litter.
As our volunteers headed out, they noted that what seemed like a clean space to the naked eye ended up producing multiple bags of litter.
Litter can range from large, visible pieces of garbage to small microplastics hidden beneath the sand on the beach or granola bar wrappers mixed in with fallen leaves on the forest floor.
Our volunteers had a great time learning about the importance of keeping parks clean and how to spot the small pieces of litter hiding beneath what appears to be a pristine area.
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