Picnickers are leaving behind huge messes at popular Mississauga park

A popular park in Mississauga’s north end is being left a mess by some picnickers, raising concern among city councillors and the mayor that the untidy behaviour is causing a public health issue.

Picnic areas at Paul Coffey Park, located at Derry Road East and Goreway Drive in Malton, have recently been left littered with trash after weekend celebrations.

“Once again this past weekend, we experienced a significant amount of garbage (left behind),” City of Mississauga Ward 5 Coun. Natalie Hart told colleagues and city staff at last Wednesday’s general committee meeting.

Mayor Carolyn Parrish, the Ward 5 representative on council for nearly a decade before switching seats earlier this year, described recent goings-on at the park as “a mess” and said she’s “never seen anything like it.”

Parrish added she’s seen a number of photos of trash left at the park pop up on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) “and what you can see are vast areas with no garbage cans, so I’m wondering if we can triple the (number of) garbage cans there” to help deal with the matter on that particular front.

Mayor Carolyn Parrish described the state of the picnic areas at Paul Coffey Park as a mess.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. I was a concillor there for nine years and I didn’t experience anything like that, so I don’t know what has changed,” the mayor said. “But I think it requires a really in-depth view of what’s going on up there because they get away with it, so it’s getting worse and worse and worse. It’s a mess. And it’s a health issue; I’m sure it draws in animals and rats and all kinds of things that go bump in the night.”

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Both Parrish and Hart asked senior city staff if the matter can be addressed.

Hart suggested those who book the facilities and then leave the park area a mess should not be allowed to reserve the facility again “because if you don’t leave it in a state of good repair, I don’t see why you should get to come back and use it again.”

The councillor added messes being left behind are not only comprised of an “abundance of red Solo cups,” but of items much more difficult to collect and bag.

Additionally, Hart noted to senior city staff, “the issue around the garbage pickup is not so much the removal and emptying of the containers (by city parks staff); this is you need to go in with pickers because it’s all over the ground, which I would not assume is a regular part of your scheduled (cleanup) activities.”

Ward 5 Coun. Natalie Hart said messes left behind at the park are more than just “an abundance of red Solo cups.”

Hart also pointed to “over-parking” as an issue of concern as it presents an impediment to emergency vehicles should they need to attend the park.

Jodi Robillos, the city’s community services commissioner, said city crews remove garbage from Paul Coffey Park and other large “destination parks” in Mississauga twice daily on weekends.

“I would say Paul Coffey (Park) is one of many that we have a lot of picnic activities and a lot of garbage,” she added.

“We appreciate when people who rent our park actually put all the garbage in one spot, which is what we direct them to do when they’re renting a picnic area.”

In cases where picnickers leave an unsightly mess, Robillos said the city tries to contact those who booked the facility and pass any additional cleanup costs back to them.

However, she added, if garbage is spread all over the park and not in one area, it can be “really hard to determine which group and which area to ascribe that additional cleanup cost to.

“But I can tell you we do charge back groups for additional cleanup (costs) and if there are multiple incidents, we don’t rent to that group again.”