Victoria council has asked staff to investigate the problem of overflowing litter bins downtown.
“I think we do have misuses of our current on-street [garbage bins],” said Coun. Shellie Gudgeon, who received support from her colleagues last week for a staff report into what she called “a big-city issue.”
“Once again, it’s a complex issue. We have old, small bins that don’t compact. As we add food trucks and more to-go-style food products in our city, it is adding an incredible burden upon the garbage cans.”
Gudgeon, a downtown restaurateur, said there might be a need for infrastructure upgrades or simply a determination of whether some residents and businesses are improperly using litter bins instead of having garbage picked up and hauled away.
“I have to pay for my garbage. My garbage for our business is between $700 and $1,000 a month to pay to have private people come and pick it up, and I assume it should be a level playing field and it should be fair for everyone,” she said.
Simply sending out the message that the city is investigating could help, she said.
“I think just a positive, proactive communications campaign might be enough to reduce a lot of this abuse. But because we’ve had none, it’s actually escalating the problem.”
When one walks down a street and sees one litter bin overflowing while the one next to it is empty, it’s evidence of a problem, she said.
Gudgeon said the city should consider asking for evidence of contracts for garbage collection when issuing business licences.
Coun. Charlayne Thornton-Joe said several factors could be contributing to the problem, including more food trucks; the fact that some older buildings — particularly in Chinatown — do not have garbage pickup, and the use of city bins by customers of restaurants or coffee shops.
She said council has worked with the Chinese community to address the issue and has seen some improvement.
Dwayne Kalynchuk, the city’s director of engineering, said staff have been looking at garbage collection in the downtown with a view to separating recyclables and organics.
City manager Jason Johnson called it “a level-of-service issue” that will be looked at as part of the budget process.
“So what level of service do we provide the downtown [for] separated garbage? How often are we doing pickups in the summer? What’s contributing to that increase that we had to change the level of service in May, when typically it’s a service increase that we do in June.”
Mayor Dean Fortin said council needs all the information to do a cost-benefit analysis before deciding the right course of action.
“It isn’t like bylaw enforcement and heading to court is free. If it’s going to cost us $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000 to prosecute someone, is that effective?” he asked.
