Tag Archives: Stephanie Valdal

Rivers & Oceans, Waste

The Island-wide 2024 Beach Clean-up on Cortes

The first truckload was filled over the roofline with beach debris. Sam Gibb drove into the Klahoose village shortly after 10:30 AM on Saturday. Alex Bernier, followed with a smaller load. Helen Hall and Autumn Barrett Morgan, two other members of the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI), were there to help them unload. Stephanie Valdal, Services Coordinator for the Comox Strathcona Waste Management Service, had come from Courtenay. The debris collected by Klahoose Aquaculture had not yet arrived. By the time the month long Cortes Island wide beach clean-up officially ended, on Sunday, there was a bin full of beach debris. This year’s clean-up was a collaborative initiative between Klahoose Aquaculture, FOCI, the Ocean Legacy Foundation and Comox Strathcona Waste Management Service.  

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Rivers & Oceans, Waste

Quadra Island’s ‘Dream Team Beach Clean-up’

Quadra Island’s 3-month-long beach clean-up finished over the weekend.

“Once a week, usually on Wednesdays, we would go on a remote beach hike,  to different areas on Quadra that were hard to access.  We had to go hiking for maybe an hour or so to some of these places and then collect and leave debris, and then we’d have to return by boat another day,” explained Nevil Hand, who organized the campaign.

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Rivers & Oceans, Waste

A new marine waste pick up service gets underway

By Greg Osoba, CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

The Comox Strathcona Waste Management Centre on Vancouver Island is launching a new marine waste eco pick up service next week.

Services Coordinator Stephanie Valdal says the centre will send trucks with large bins to communities to pick up marine waste that has been collected by individuals, community groups and First Nations. She adds that at this point the service will be by request and will be monitored to measure demand.

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Rivers & Oceans, Waste

West Coast infrastructure is on the rise to stem the wave of ocean plastics

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Editor’s note: FOCI volunteers carried out a ‘Mother’s Day Beach Clean-up of the beach between Hollyhock and Seaford Road, Cortes Island on May 9, 2022.

Coastal community cleanup groups on eastern Vancouver Island have been itching for the opening of B.C.’s newest ocean debris recycling depot. 

The Cumberland site, operated by Comox Strathcona Waste Management (CSWM) in partnership with the Ocean Legacy Foundation, opened in mid-June to tackle the tonnes of plastic washing ashore in the region, said Stephanie Valdal, CSWM’s waste management services co-ordinator. 

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