PEI

Meet the young Islander cleaning up after campers in Brudenell

​What started as a simple summer hobby several years ago, collecting bottles and cans to keep the park clean, has turned into a bit of a summer job that nets Fionn McAdam-Young anywhere between $400-700 a year.

'It's just that I don't want people to litter'

Fionn McAdam-Young wants to encourage others to stop littering. (Shutterstock)

A young Islander has taken it upon himself to cleanup Brudenell River Provincial Park.

​What started as a simple summer hobby several years ago, collecting bottles and cans to keep the park clean, has turned into a bit of a summer job that nets Fionn McAdam-Young anywhere between $400-700 a year.

"It's actually a pretty fun job because it's at a place that I really enjoy to be at," he said.

McAdam-Young ventures through the provincial park and the beach area picking up garbage and collecting cans and bottles along the way.

He said he often finds himself cleaning up after party-goers littering near the river.

"There's a lot of boats in the river next to [the park], they have parties and stuff and a lot of them just throw the cans over the side of the boats so me and my mom would come pick them up after the parties," he said.

"We'd come along the beach and pick them up just to clean up the area, make it look a little nice. And it's better for the environment."

'I don't want people to litter'

After counting the items he gathers, he sorts them into plastic and glass and brings them to a recycling depot in Cardigan, P.E.I., to cash in on findings.

He usually saves the money year over year, he said, but he did use a bit of the cash to go on a trip to New York at the end of last summer.

But, if it were up to him, he said he'd rather see party-goers at the park recycle properly and not litter the grounds he's come to protect.

"This year I put signs up and last year I put signs up about the fact that I'm doing it," McAdam-Young said, adding that it's gotten cleaner over the years.

"I don't care that I may not make as much money, it's just that I don't want people to litter."

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With files from Nakshi Pandit