The Toronto Harbour is a city favourite. It provides open green space with waterfront views, and is home to cultural events, live entertainment and craft exhibits.
Unfortunately, the beautiful scenery also comes with something else… litter. We have reported litter coming down the Don River, floating in the Toronto Harbour, and impacting local wildlife.
To better understand this issue and inform local solutions, we collaborate on local research and technological solutions as part of the Toronto Inner Harbour Floatables Strategy, to prevent and clean up floating plastic and other anthropogenic litter in our beloved harbour.
This project focuses on downstream solutions. Interested in upstream solutions? Check out our Pollution Prevention Projects where we work to reduce plastic pollution – one source at a time!
Tracking and Trapping Trash
To inform solutions such as trash capture devices, our tracking trash research aims to understand the sources and fate of floating litter on our local waterfront (how does our litter enter the water, move from point A to B, and where does it eventually accumulate). These questions will help inform policies aimed at upstream solutions and technologies for trapping trash downstream, before it has a chance to flow into Lake Ontario.
Tangle, 2023
Learn more about our public art installation, which was on display in the Peter Street Basin during Summer 2023.
Our work diverting litter and collecting data on the Toronto Waterfront contributes to the Toronto Inner Harbour Floatables Strategy, a collaborative strategy with a mission to reduce plastic pollution and other floating litter in the harbour. It is a collaboration between the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority the Toronto Remedial Action Plan, University of Toronto Trash Team, Toronto Port Authority, City of Toronto, Swim Drink Fish, Waterfront Business Improvement Area, Harbourfront Centre, and Waterfront Toronto.