The City of Castlegar has been making efforts to get people to stop dumping household garbage in city parks, but some people are still using the public space as their personal dumping ground.
The city recently upgraded garbage cans in parks so the openings are smaller to prevent the dumping of household waste.
“We did this because cans in parks are manually emptied into a dump truck by staff and the bags become too heavy to lift when filled with household waste,” explained the city in a social media post.
“Unfortunately, we’re seeing large bags of household waste piled around the cans. This looks terrible, can be smelly, and can attract bears at a time when they are very active.”
If you see someone dumping garbage, contact the city’s bylaw officer at 250-365-9349.
The fine for dumping garbage is $200.
In order to reduce the amount of smelly garbage residents have to keep in their cans between pickups and minimize human-bear conflict, the city introduced a community dumpster pilot project earlier this summer.
Two bear-smart dumpsters — one at Pioneer Arena and one near the city’s civic works yard — are available for small bags of garbage.
Unfortunately, these dumpsters are also being abused. Garbage was on the ground around the dumpster at Pioneer Arena over the weekend. People have been observed placing multiple large bags of garbage in the dumpsters even though the purpose of the project is for residents to have a place for small bags of their smelliest garbage.
When city council approved the pilot project it was with the condition that if the dumpsters were abused they would be removed, so that option may disappear if the abuse continues.
City of Castlegar offering dumpster for small amounts of summer garbage
LETTERS: For and against Castlegar’s community dumpsters
betsy.kline@castlegarnews.com
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