A duo from Grunthal has started cleaning up garbage as they drink coffee and go for daily walks in St. Pierre, St. Malo, and Grunthal.

Cecil Bayliss and Abe Krause say this little habit of theirs actually started out as a joke, "It started out as an April Fool's thing. We were bored and the cafes were closed, and we like going to the cafe because we're both bachelors, so we'd get a coffee and go for a drive."

An example of the trash collected by Bayliss and KrauseBayliss has actually taken notes of their trash adventures, recording where, when, and how much trash was picked up.

"It's funny, we do about 30km and it's usually 2 hours, that's our little joke, the coffee seems to last about that long."

Bayliss uses a scooter when he's picking up trash around his hometown of Grunthal, but when they hit the highway a truck is their mode of transportation.

Bayliss says he and Abe do it for their health. He notes reaching the requisite 10,000 steps isn't too hard when you're picking trash for 2 hours a day. They cleaned the ditches along both sides of Highway 59 from Grunthal to Ste Pierre a couple of times in the last few months.

"I think when you drive into a community, especially driving through a community that's clean, I just think people respect it more."

Cecil and Abe initially started with only picking up beer cans and got 4 bags of beer cans in that first month. With gas being as cheap as it was, he says the trash detail basically paid for itself. They decided to try another month and although it only yielded 3 bags, they've continued on. This month the duo has already collected over 5 bags, as they’ve found 75 beer cans along highway 59 over a stretch of only 6 miles.

"Who knows how long since this ditch has been cleaned? We're like hawks, we've done it so long. Think how much better our community would look if everyone would properly throw out their trash instead of throwing it out the window?"

The trash picking duo recently learned that there is a contest for the cleanest town.

"Steinbach usually wins, but maybe they'll have to look outside Steinbach this year! It would be nice for our town to win an award for being clean, just because of a couple of guys."