Mr. Floatie

Since the early 1900's, the city of Victoria, British Columbia has been treating its sewage the same way flushing it, untreated, into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. With the help of an unusual community activist, the B.C. government has ordered Victoria to develop a sewage treatment plan by June 2007. The community activist is Mr. Floatie, a man dressed in a turd suit. Mr. Floatie is the scatological mascot of People Opposed to Outfall Pollution (POOP), a group committed to raising awareness and money to solve the problem of Victoria dumping raw sewage into the Strait. Victoria remains the last major city in Canada without even primary treatment of its sewage. Victoria discharges more than 120 million liters of raw sewage daily. That's more than 45 billion liters annually. The sewage is screened to remove the solids, but toxic cleaners, solvents, medicines and the sediment are released directly to the strait. A century ago the "solution to pollution was dilution", but today that's being reconsidered with help from Mr. Floatie.