Tighter rules about garbage disposal have resulted in a surge of kitchen trash being dumped in Coquitlam parks.
This week, city staff said they're seeing garbage cans in parks and at trailheads in single-family residential neighbourhoods overflowing with household waste up to 75% of the trash pulled from the cans.
And they're recommending city council budget hundreds of thousands of dollars next year to overhaul the parks waste management system.
That plan, if approved in full by council, would see large underground bins installed in the big parks, a retrofit of 200 bins with recycling baskets, 50 new bins just for dog waste and a massive public education campaign about littering.
The suggestions come after an audit was presented Monday to Coquitlam's council-in-committee. At the meeting, councillors relayed several stories about watching or hearing about residents who had dumped their kitchen waste in parks rather than dispose of it in green cans.
The illegal dumping is happening for a number of reasons, city staff told councillors. They point to population growth, expansion of parks (especially on Burke Mountain), the changeover last summer to a biweekly solid waste pickup that requires source separation, and Metro Vancouver's rules which came into effect in January to ban organics from the landfill.
Coun. Mae Reid said she believes some homeowners have failed to upsize their city garbage bins to accommodate the amount of waste they produce because of the extra cost. And many property owners who have tenants living in secondary suites now don't have room in their bins to take care of their waste. In other cases, Reid claimed, homeowners simply don't want to wait until pickup day and want the garbage out of the house.
There's also the issue of the heftier levy to tip large items such as mattresses.
All of this illegal dumping has added to the bottom line for city disposal, staff say.
"It's the same everywhere else. It's not unique to Coquitlam," parks manager Kathy Reinheimer said. "We get a lot of electronics dumped in the park because it's simpler than taking it to the right place to dispose of it. Ten or 15 years ago, you could put it out on your curb to be hauled away not any more."
Readers of The Tri-City News have also reported recent upticks in illegal dumping. Sue Woodward, director of Childgarden Preschool near Mundy Park, said the kids' "magic forest" has turned into a litter zone, with trash tossed into streams.
"The children are upset and are full of ideas about what should be done about this," she wrote to The Tri-City News. "Some ideas include making a sign or driving slowly with a loud speaker to tell the people, 'Don't litter, it hurts the animals.'"
Coun. Craig Hodge, who is on Metro's zero waste committee, said if people sorted their garbage, recycling and green waste correctly, everything would fit into their bins.
Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore, the Metro board chair, said illegal dumping is common when a disposal restriction goes into effect but, over time, people change adjust to the new measures.
"Let's face it," Moore said, "it's a minority of people doing this."
@jwarrenTC
