Overweight trash bins a problem in Regina: councillor

A Regina city councillor is raising concerns about people misusing large back-alley Dumpsters, creating unsightly messes and impossible-to-dump bins.

"Where we have these large bins, there's sometimes abuse of them," Ward 6 Coun. Wade Murraytold CBC News in an interview Monday.

'Sometimes it's earth. It could be stucco. It could be shingles. It's concrete, construction materials. Things that don't belong in those bins.' Regina Coun. Wade Murray

Murray planned to outline his concerns at the Monday night city council meeting. He said he would ask city administration to look into the issue and report back.

Most Regina neighbourhoods with back-alley access have large, industrial-stylemetal bins into which residents empty their garbage.

Murray said he was especially concerned with people overloading the bins with items that are too heavy for garbage-removal equipment to handle.

"Sometimes it's earth. It could be stucco. It could be shingles. It's concrete, construction materials. Things that don't belong in those bins," Murray explained. "Things that need to go to the landfill."

Regina uses specialized trucks thatlift the large containers and dump the contents into a large tank-like receptacle.

"It's very difficult, and in fact impossible for our equipment to lift them when they're overloaded," Murray said.

He said that when a Dumpster is too heavy, a special crew must be assigned to lift the bin, and tip it so a worker can get inside and manually shovel out the contents.

That can be very costly, Murray said, noting that the current system is very efficient. Murray said it costs only $40 per year for each bin to be serviced under the current weekly garbage pickup system. Each bin, Murray added, is designed to handle garbage from four families.

He said he is also concerned when people from outside a neighbourhood dump their garbage in one of the big bins, whichcan quickly overload them. Before long, a back alley can become strewn with all sorts of refuse.

"The reality is, the citizens that live here typically aren't that messy," Murray said. "We don't, as a group, like to have a mess."

Drivers can't stop

Murray said the system is not designed to have drivers stop and pick up stray garbage.

"If it does fall off the side [of a Dumpster] and blow around the driver, although he'd like to get out and pick it up, he's going to be short on the rest of his run," Murray said. "He won't get finished if he doesn't carry on."

While Murray said he hopes to learn more from city officials about the nature of garbage problems, he said he was also hoping people might change their ways simply by his raising the issue.

"The solution, here, is education," Murray said. "It's not always about laying down the law and slamming a new bylaw in front of everybody."