What to know
- Toronto volunteer Alex Hartman Adams has spent the past year organizing community cleanups along the Lake Ontario shoreline through his initiative Park City Toronto.
- Since launching the effort in April 2025 at Marie Curtis Park, the group has completed 26 shoreline cleanups across the city.
- Some locations, including Colonel Samuel Smith Park, required up to 10 sessions due to heavy litter and difficult conditions.
- The project resumes March 15 at Humber Bay Park West, with a long-term goal of eventually cleaning the waterfront from Mississauga to Pickering.
A Toronto man is on a mission to change the way people experience the city’s parks and waterfront — starting with cleaning them up.
Alex Hartman Adams, founder of Park City Toronto, has spent the past year organizing two-hour volunteer cleanups along the Lake Ontario shoreline with the long-term goal of clearing litter from the waterfront stretching from Mississauga to Pickering.
The effort began last April at Marie Curtis Park, and since then Adams has organized 26 cleanups throughout 2025, pausing in Etobicoke for the winter season.
While the work has been rewarding, Adams said it hasn’t always been easy. From a lengthy 10 sessions spent clearing Colonel Samuel Smith Park to battling weather conditions and large amounts of litter — sometimes what he calls “garbage mountains” — some cleanups have proven more challenging than others.
“It felt like we’d never finished that park for a while last summer,” he expressed to Now Toronto on Wednesday. “We never know exactly how long it’ll take in each spot. Each spot sort of has its own characteristics.”
In every park visited, Adams records a master list not only documenting things like the cleaning duration or the weather, but also every cute and odd thing found along the way. Some to note so far include a giant four-person pool floatie, grapefruit halves and a funeral urn.
The project is set to start back up this Sunday, Mar. 15 at Humber Bay Park West at 1 p.m., and Adams hopes it will continue to grow as more volunteers join the effort.
“Anybody who will volunteer to pick up garbage is our kind of people,” he said. “It’s not everybody that would do this… it’s a certain attitude of ‘I’m going to improve the environment. I’m not going to wait for somebody else to do it. I’m not going to complain about it. I’m just going to take direct action.”
Adams admits this project will likely take years to reach Pickering as volunteers slowly work their way east, but hopes the initiative will gradually make a visible impact along the waterfront, while also encouraging residents to take a more active role in caring for Toronto’s outdoor spaces.
“I’m really excited about this. We are directly helping the community through our own choice, rather than waiting for anybody else to do it. And I think that’s the thing that feels really good about it,” Adams said. “I encourage everybody to find ways to pick up a piece of garbage somewhere, or, you know, fix up some little thing that’s broken. I just imagine more people doing this will beautify the city.”
