Transfer Stations Becoming Dumping Grounds
Prince George, B.C. – The Regional District of Fraser-Fort George is calling on residents to get back on track with what is, and isn't, supposed to be dropped at waste transfer stations.
The transfer stations are supposed to be for small loads of household garbage, and not big, bulky or prohibited items.
Over the past few weeks,the amount of bulky items, such as furniture and mattresses, has increased at transfer stations. “We aren’t sure if this is related to the new fee structure at the Foothills landfill, or if it’s just spring cleaning” says Renee McCloskey, Manager of External Relations for the Regional District. The new fee structure charges a per load fee at the Foothills Landfill, that fee has been in effect since last September, costing $6 per pick up truck load, double that if the load is not secured.
Regional transfer stations are designed to receive bagged household garbage such as food and packaging waste, plastics, textiles, and glass and to accommodate the tipping of garbage cans. Garbage should be contained in a large garbage bag or a garbage can with a lid for transport to the facility. Residents are asked to make sure the bin door is shut and latched to prevent animals from entering the bin.
Large household items such as furniture and mattresses are accepted at the Foothills Landfill for a small fee. Check the Regional District website for details on what can be deposited at the Foothills Boulevard Regional Landfill and any associated fees.
Comments
âWe arenât sure if this is related to the new fee structure at the Foothills landfill, or if itâs just spring cleaningâ says Renee McCloskey, Manager of External Relations for the Regional District.
Give your head a shake, it is all about the fee structure. The was forecast to happen if the new fee structure came in to play. I can’t believe these people get paid to fail like this.
If they make it inconvenient for people to dump, then they will litter. It is not an incentive to travel a two hour round trip from Pineview to the landfill site at Foothills and then have to pay $12 plus to dump.
The bureaucracy is correct that if they make it more difficult to dump that they will get less people using the service and volumes will be down. Although the cost of this policy is paid for by the environment with more people dumping where they can.
I think user fees to dump at the landfill and the closer of transfer station services is one of the dumbest policies ever to come about… right up there with paying for the rainwater run off tax.
PG has a reputation for being a dirty city with a lot of litter about. So its only natural that our parks and trail heads don’t have garbage bins. To find one on a sidewalk downtown or anywhere else can be next to impossible. A sign of community pride PG style….
Haven’t they figured this out by now? This happens every Spring and where was the Site Attendant anyway? Not all regional transfer stations look like this. Why not give us all a break and leave a large open bin for bulky items in the Spring? We pay for it through our taxes anyway, and in the end it would save on clean-up costs. I guess it just makes too much sense.
Stay classy Prince George!
6 bucks to dump the occasional load of garbage is not going to break anyone. How many extra trips a year do people make to the dump? It’s not as though they’re paying 6 bucks a week for this. This is just people being lazy and nothing else.
This picture looks like the Norman Lake road transfer station. A lot of the items left are reuseable and people leave them out for others who might have a need for them to be able to take them.
There are people dumping large items along any road in the bush now, something we seldom used to see. People could take them to the dump and properly get rid of them but now everything costs and costs and costs, so people dump them where they can get away with it.
$6.00 maybe not I know someone who took an old fence to the landfill and the cost was $70.00 besides we are paying hugh utility bills , what for, when we have to pay everytime something has to go to the dump , maybe the city has all the answers Its not about people being lazy it’s about people fed up with being ripped off plain and simple .
I was at the dump yesterday,,, foothills.I was charged 14 dollars for a short box truck that wasn’t heaping full of garbage. Funny how you can see your weight posted going in but not coming out.I will pay 6 dollars at one of the others next time. Also the line up going in was backed right up to foothills. Only one employee in the booth, it was a pretty slow go. Where is the dump in the picture? looks like some good stuff there ;)
It looks like some of that stuff could have gone into the Swap Shed…. if that still existed. Another good idea that was rushed to side.
Posted by: Fedup2014 on May 8 2014 6:24 AM
$6.00 maybe not I know someone who took an old fence to the landfill and the cost was $70.00 besides we are paying hugh utility bills , what for, when we have to pay everytime something has to go to the dump , maybe the city has all the answers Its not about people being lazy it’s about people fed up with being ripped off plain and simple .
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No, it is all about people being lazy. We all want our disposable goods yet we don’t want to pay for their disposal?
If people don’t want to pay to dispose of their garbage they need to come up with ways to reduce the amount of garbage they generate.
Anyone who is thinking about taking an old fence to the dump… burn it ,buy some hotdogs and beer and have forty dollars left in your pocket. that was easy ;)
i recently took a load of garbage to the dump branches and household garbage. First thing that happened was a snotty worker told me i would be fined cause i only had 1 strap securing my load. After getting out of my vehicle and showing them there was actually 3 straps i was allowed to dump and expecting a 6 dollar fee was shocked when it was 16.00 for half compost and half garbage. Im not sure if that was the normal charge or if it went up when i argued to not pay a fine . What makes things worse is first 2 quad rides of the year one out behind the dump and one out past nukko lake the bush is full of garbage like i have never seen before. It wasnt like that last yr or any year before so the fee at the dump must have something to do with it
And sadly the mess is only gonna get worse
That is Norman Lake Road Transfer Station a bit East of Bednesti. Its spring cleaning and lazy, Vanderhoof is closer and I am not sure about their fee structure but to drop that at the Norman Lake Transfer Station, people just didn’t want to drive the extra time to the landfill. They will make excuses about the drive time but they choose to live out there. The trials in that area often have bulky items dumped there, I have hauled a few quad and truck loads out of the bush to the Vanderhoof landfill. Not everyone out there are messy, but many use the rural area as a dumping ground.
As for the 2hr trip from Pineview to the landfill,,, use the Cummings road transfer station save the drive.
If you buy something and then no longer want it why is it ok to leave it for others to clean up? or simply toss relatively good things that people may use? Maybe our materialistic society is starting to bury us, literally
Someone dumped a load of garage on a residential street in the bowl last week. A couch and bags of garbage were left right on the side of a busy road beside a park. They need to re-evaluate this system, it was a mistake.
The regional district has a problem, its 3-toonies to go to the dump, I rather spend the three toonies at timmies and get breakfast.
Swap sheds where shut down because the workers found it inconvient to maintain. The other reason, people would take stuff and then put it up for sale, how dastardly.
It is going to cost millions to clean up this whopping mistake. That less garbage going to the dump is spread all over hell’s half acre. End this insanity now.
Hey PG Dreamer – was it a blue couch? I bet it was the renters across the street from my place on Thacker Cr. That couch has been an eyesore all winter.
Maybe now the city and the regional district will get the idea. They should’ve never closed the transfer station behind the city yards. That was worth the $6. The word is going to get around about the costs at the foothills station and more illegal dumping will occur. Maybe they should keep their word about it only being $6, not based on weight of what you have to dump. Morons at te city and morons at the regional district!
I suspect the planners at city hall and the regional district did not finish anywhere near the top of their class. Maybe a garbage handling fact finding trip can be arranged to some exotic far off land to find a solution.
Posted by: stitch on May 8 2014 9:09 AM
Maybe now the city and the regional district will get the idea. They should’ve never closed the transfer station behind the city yards. That was worth the $6. The word is going to get around about the costs at the foothills station and more illegal dumping will occur. Maybe they should keep their word about it only being $6, not based on weight of what you have to dump. Morons at te city and morons at the regional district!
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Maybe people should start acting like responsible adults and start addressing the inordinate amount of refuse they generate.
The only morons here are those dumping their garbage just to save a few bucks. The planet’s not going to clean itself up.
Posted by: lbear on May 8 2014 8:42 AM
Hey PG Dreamer – was it a blue couch?
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I think it was blue but no where near Thacker…it was downtown
Get back on track and pay what we demand. Sure hope they don’t have the powers of the C.R.A. in Ottawa.
$70 dollars to get rid of an old fence? Time for Victoria to impose a deposit fee and a recycling fee on fence material. To insure environmentally correct disposal.
Cooking hotdogs over old fencing covered in paint and stain. Now there is a chemical cocktail on your dog. No need for extra seasoning
Wouldn’t it cost you $6 in gas to drive to the nearest transfer station to avoid paying the Foothills fees?
Posted by: jillianmerrick on May 8 2014 10:01 AM
Wouldn’t it cost you $6 in gas to drive to the nearest transfer station to avoid paying the Foothills fees?
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Not only that, but how often do these people need to visit the dump? 70 bucks to dispose of an old fence is a once in a lifetime expense.
A couple of years ago I was in the maritimes. It is amazing the cleanliness of those provinces. There is a $2000.00 min. fine for littering.
Once a month people can put big items out to the curb and there is an extra garbage/container truck that picks it up.
I asked some of the residents about costs and they are not charged a large sum to pay for this through their utilities. It worked out about $6 on their bill!
Hell, I would go for that. It would cost me more to haul it away. Great idea. The areas get extra dollars back for some of the recycled goods such as metal etc.
I have never paid less than 11 bucks to dump at the landfill. The 6 buck charge they talk about would cover a half a bag of garbage at the most.
A “gallon” of gasoline costs more than six dollars. Do the math.
PGguy – I have taken about 20 loads to the dump and never been over the 100KG limit for the $6 charge and its a heck of a lot more than a “half a bag”. I dont know what you are hauling – its either very heavy or specialized like compost or drywall I’m guessing.
Didn’t read all these posts but you pay $6 at the Vanway Transfer Station per load.
Hey Harbinger: 4.32ltrs @ $1.39 per/ltr is equal to 0.95026676 Imperial gallons, at least that’s what you get for $6.00 (depending on the grade you buy). I would say close enough…..lol
Time to revisit the obvious. This was highly predictable. Removing the transfer stations and increasing costs to legally dispose of refuse leads to what? See the picture above. waste disposal has got to have some common sense behind it. My bad, when did common sense enter into it. Can’t wait for my first spring quad ride. We pay taxes for waste disposal. It dosen’t need to be a profit center. It needs to keep our world half ass clean. This clearly isn’t the way. Sad that this was so avoidable. I always haul more shit out of the bush then I take in and will continue to do so. But the idiots that dreamt this up should be out there to get a first hand look at there decisions.
People are idiots with ther garbage. Nothing new there. So lets make it tough to do the right thing. Put some little nazi on the weigh scales and encourage bush dumping. Where are the eco’s on this file? This is a easily fixable issue with huge upside for the planet. Dave Wilbur, go pick up some garbage.
That’s why one needs the beer seamut,,, to wash it all down. still safer than a microwave no ?,,, maybe ??? Cheers
Curious on how many of you complaining about the city voted in these city officials? :O
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