As the busiest provincial park in the province (with 1.5 million visitors annually!), Wasaga Beach Provincial Park deals with A LOT of garbage.
We want to encourage our visitors to dispose of their trash in appropriate areas, and protect our natural spaces.
That’s why we’re proud to share our new partnership where garbage and art collide: art barrels!
A trash epidemic
Each year, park staff remove approximately 200,000 kg of garbage from the park.
That’s the equivalent of over 18 school buses!
Much of this trash ends up in areas it shouldn’t be, like along the sandy shores of Wasaga Beach’s 14 km beach.
Our park staff work extremely hard to keep the park beautiful and clean, but we also want our visitors to do their part too.
We knew we needed a creative and unique way to encourage our visitors to participate in appropriate waste management.
Where art and garbage collide
That’s why Wasaga Beach Provincial Park, in coordination with the Town of Wasaga Beach, partnered with local artists and schools to develop our beautiful new art garbage barrels!
Local artists were given specific park themes to create their concepts, which included featured locations in the provincial park, recreational activities, and significant natural and cultural heritage stories.
Once designed, the artists worked with students from local schools to bring their concepts to life.
Wasaga Beach Provincial Park and Town of Wasaga Beach staff worked together to coordinate the project, facilitate the painting at local schools, and deploy the art barrels to provincial park areas.
Finding trash-spiration
The art barrels are designed to provoke thought and conversation, encourage proper visitor behaviour, and engage the local community, specifically children, in park stewardship activities.
We hope that having these new barrels will inspire our visitors to think about where their trash should go, and help us keep our protected areas garbage free.
Visitors will find art barrels in various locations around the park, such as the boardwalk in Beach Area 2, Nancy Island Historic Site, Schooner Town Heritage Site, the Nordic and Trail Centre, and park gatehouses.
Keep our park beautiful
Next time you visit Wasaga Beach Provincial Park, keep your eyes open and see how many of our new art barrels you can spot!
And of course … don’t forget to throw out your trash!
Thank you to the everyone who helped us make this project a success!
Contributing artists:
- Shandelle Page McCurdie: @herpaintedpage
- Nancy Gareh: @nancy_gareh
- Alex Kostecka-Silva: @alexkosteckasilva
- Onai White: @onaiwhite_art
Participating elementary schools:
- Worsley Elementary School
- St. Noel Chabanel Catholic School