Waterfall cleanups taking place across N.B. on Saturday

With dozens of easily accessible waterfalls in New Brunswick, more and more hikers are discovering them, especially via social media. Matt Miller, a 19 year-old Fredericton photographer is hoping the power of social media can help get them cleaned up.

Miller runs a Facebook community page called Waterfalls New Brunswick. It shares photos, videos and gives directions to accessible waterfalls around the province.

Miller has organized a cleanup day for waterfalls on Saturday, April 30.

He says many waterfalls close to urban or residential areas become hangouts and popular swimming holes and beer cans get left behind.

"Those ones would have more garbage than the ones you have to hike a couple hours into because not many people go to those ones," said Miller.

He was recently at Silver Falls off Loch Lomond Road near the oil refinery in Saint John and says it's quite messy.

Miller estimates he's visited more than 60 waterfalls across the province. His favourites are the ones that are harder to find.

Miller and his father, Lindon, will be cleaning waterfalls in the Fredericton area. Lindon works for the Department of Transportation and focuses on culverts and waterways. He often showed his son photos of waterfalls he came across at work.

A love of waterfalls from an early age

"Early on as a family, we did a lot of camping and exploring," said Lindon. "In New Brunswick, you don't have to go very far to find a waterfall and feel like there's nobody around, like they're untouched by time."

Miller says his idea for a cleanup day has been well received by the Facebook page followers as about 350 people have indicated they're interested in the event or will be participating.

"Even if you only go out to one waterfall and even if you only pick up like five items, that's a huge help because if everyone does that, then that's a huge amount of garbage picked up for one single day," said Miller.