Irene Vandertop pulls out three clear plastic bags of garbage from the back of her car. The garbage, all 3,000 pieces of it, was collected by volunteers from an area outside just one Tim Hortons store in Toronto over several hours.
“This is quite disgusting,” Vandertop says before she pulls out the third bag. “This is only cups and lids from one store.”
Vandertop, a co-founder of Don’t Mess with the Don, says the restaurant chain Tim Hortons has a big problem when it comes to litter. The registered charity, run by volunteers, cleans up trash from ravines in the Don Valley and says it has picked up about 136,078 kilograms of garbage in the past six years.
The number one brand it finds in its garbage cleanups is Tim Hortons, Vandertop said.
“Imagine — Tim Hortons has more than 4,000 stores across Canada now and that would be millions …