The City of Coquitlam is hoping to stop local bruins from taking advantage of the annual smorgasbord of food scraps that is laid out for them on city streets during garbage collection day.
An overhaul of the collection schedule for the city’s 25,000 residents who receive residential waste collection will start March 12 with the goal of reducing the time smelly green waste carts containing food scraps and garbage carts (which aren’t supposed to contain food but sometimes do) sit at the curb to attract curious and hungry bears.
The city is spending $200,000 to implement the plan, most of which will go to pay for additional garbage and green waste trucks to help out with the initial implementation.
“We want to hear fewer reports and complaints of bears getting into garbage on collection day and we are going to be monitoring and watching that,” said Steffanie Warriner, manager of environmental services.
The way it will work is that the city will be split into morning and afternoon zones so green carts and garbage carts near areas frequented by bears are picked up first.
Burke Mountain, Westwood Plateau, Eagle Ridge, Ranch Park and Chineside will get morning collection between 7:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. while afternoon collection will take place for all other areas of the city, with waste picked up between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The change is supposed to reduce the time the garbage and green waste sits on curbs in areas frequented by bears to around six hours instead of 12 while residents in the afternoon zones have the option of setting out their garbage and green waste at 11 a.m., also potentially reducing opportunities for bears to seek out food from carts.
In addition to new collection times, a number of homes will face changes to their pick up date — 25% of homes will have a collection day that is earlier in the week, 50% will have a collection day later in the week and 25% will have no change.
One point of note, however, is that recycling collection won’t change and Recycle BC, which provides the service for free will, continue to require that recycling be placed at the curb by 7 a.m. and will pick up based on their own routing schedule.
Hopefully the garbage collection change will reduce the potential for conflict. Last year, 15 bears were destroyed in the Tri-Cities, mostly due to becoming habituated to garbage.
In 2017, nearly 5,000 warnings went out to people who were careless with their waste and nearly 400 fines were issued.
An app will also remind residents of their pick up day. View the service online at coquitlam.ca/recollect or download the app onto your smartphone by searching “Coquitlam Curbside Collection” in the App Store or Google Play.
