lake ontario beach

Someone just found dozens of condoms floating in Lake Ontario

Ah, good old Lake Ontario. While the body of water isn't crystal blue by any means, lots of Torontonians flock to its beaches during the summer to enjoy the warm weather.

After a thunderstorm last night, President of Swim Drink Fish Canada Mark Mattson decided to check out Ontario Place's western beach.

Mattson told blogTO that the area has been getting unexpectedly high bacteria readings lately, some of the highest seen in Toronto.

Upon his arrival, there appeared to be a large spill from sewers that discharged a lot of questionable and rather disgusting items into the water.

Mattson said the smell near Ontario Place was overwhelming, and that sewage objects like sanitary wipes, plastics, and yes, even condoms were floating along the shore.

In a tweet posted this afternoon, Mattson said that over 50 condoms and 50 sanitary wipes were found floating near Ontario Place.

"Toronto needs to modernize its monitoring and reporting of sewage spills," he told blogTO.

Swim Drink Fish Canada has made several recommendations to deal with sewage spills, including improving public awareness regarding sewage pollution, and introducing real-time monitoring for sewer overflows.

We never thought we'd say this, but if you're planning on swimming in Lake Ontario at all this summer, it's probably a good idea to check and make sure there are no condoms floating around before jumping in.

Lead photo by

Mark Mattson


Latest Videos



Latest Videos


Join the conversation Load comments

Latest in City

The TTC just made a huge change to clamp down on fare cheats riding for free

University of Toronto places fourth above Oxford and MIT in new world ranking

Yet another Toronto highway is about to slow to a crawl for major construction project

The minimum wage in Ontario is going up next month

People keep destroying automated speed cameras in Ontario

Toronto is getting a whole new neighbourhood and here's what it will look like

Ontario got its first taste of snow this weekend but summer is not over yet

Spider species responsible for most Ontario bites is most active this time of year