The good news: Coquitlam has successfully tested a cart-locking system that may be able to keep bears from breaking into residential garbage cans and green waste bins.
The bad news: Retrofitting every cart in the city is extremely expensive and may not solve the city’s wildlife issues, according to Steffanie Warriner, the city’s manager of environmental services.
Experiments on the bins, conducted at a wildlife testing facility in Kamloops, found that wildlife clips and gravity locks by themselves were not enough to keep bears out of garbage cans. But when a combination of the two locking mechanisms was used, bears were unable to get into the cart during the one-hour time frame.
“It is promising,” Warriner said before cautioning that the testing is done in a controlled environment. “It is absolutely another barrier for certain but we can’t guarantee that these would be bear proof and this is the solution.”
A staff report reiterated some of the limitations of the testing, noting that outcomes can be affected by everything from a “bear’s interest, energy level and hunger at the time of testing.”
Bears in “real-world conditions” may be more motivated and prepared to expend the time and energy required to open the carts, added the report.
Warriner said the only way to keep bears out of neighbourhoods is to ensure that all garbage and wildlife attractants are secure. If clips and gravity locks are installed on all bins, she said, residents may become complacent about keeping their waste indoors.
“That is what we are seeing with clips on the green carts,” she said. “We need to be careful about the false sense of security.”
Another issue with the locking mechanisms is cost.
According to city staff, there are approximately 50,000 carts in Coquitlam and adding locks and wildlife clips to each unit would cost an estimated $5 million.
“I do not want to bring the community into a position where we would force them collectively to spend $5 million for a solution that we don’t believe is 100% foolproof,” said Jozsef Dioszeghy, Coquitlam’s general manager of engineering and public works, during a council meeting last week.
Still, several council members said they were not convinced that abandoning the locking mechanisms is a good idea.
Councillors Craig Hodge and Dennis Marsden said staff should continue to analyze the issue while Mayor Richard Stewart said that such double locks could be useful in parts of the city where wildlife calls are rampant.
“I still believe the gravity locks are better than what we have now, which is a completely unlocked cart,” Stewart said. “The gravity lock is part of the solution for really bear-prone areas.”
Last week, the city announced proposed changes to the garbage collection schedule that would see some neighbourhoods have their waste picked up in the morning while other areas would be picked up in the afternoon.
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