Are Tipping Fees to Blame for Illegal Dumping?
Prince George, B.C. – A grass roots movement to clean up the back country of garbage has raised the question of whether or not tipping fees are to blame for illegal dumping.
Photo courtesy SCWA
The Regional District of Fraser Fort George implemented the small load fee of $6 (applying to loads of household waste less than 100kg) at the Foothills Landfill in September, 2013.
At the time, the District’s Environment and Parks Steering Committee chair Terry Burgess said the fee was being introduced “as a measure to ensure those who use the landfill more are paying more, rather than all residents subsidizing those frequent users.”
He said it was also a part of the District’s “Waste Reduction Strategy to provide an incentive for residents to generate less waste.”
Now over two and half years later, does he think the fees have helped contribute to more dumping?
“No, I don’t think so at all. There was no increase in the Lower Mainland and they’re up 40% down there.”
Burgess says the District doesn’t collect such numbers and besides he notes, the dumping has been going on “for years and years.”
“Why I don’t know, but it’s out there and I hear groups (led by the Spruce City Wildlife Association) are going to help clean it up and that’s fantastic. We have no method of cleaning it up, we don’t have the staff to do that.”
He adds it’s frustrating because most waste is now recyclable.
“Anything of metal you could take to the scrap yard and get money for it. Anything, roofing, siding, all sorts of stuff. Lawn mowers. I’ve loaded my truck with stuff and I got 20,30,40 bucks.”
Burgess says the steady stream of waste hasn’t gone unnoticed by the District, noting they’ve committed to looking further at the issue through their latest Waste Management Plan.
“We want to map known problem sites and get groups (like SCWA) that are doing the cleanup to continue to provide funding to waive tipping fees for events like these.
“And we want to be able to establish and enforce a bylaw that puts the onus on proper disposal of the waste generated and promote the RAPP (Report All Poachers and Polluters 1-877-952-7277) Line.”
BC Conservation Service Sgt. Rory Smith says those caught polluting could face anything from a $575 fine to imprisonment.
Asked if the situation has gotten any worse he says “we’ve had some successes, but then the dumping moves to another area.”
“It’s irresponsible behaviour but it’s nice to see a grassroots movement develop.”
Comments
This statement,
“Now over two and half years later, does he think the fees have helped contribute to more dumping?
“No, I don’t think so at all.”
Then this statement,
“Burgess says the District doesn’t collect such numbers and besides he notes, the dumping has been going on “for years and years.”
Well okay then!
There was definitely an increase in the dumping on dead end roads in our area after the fees were put in place.
Prior to the fees we used to drop our household garbage off once or twice a week, especially in the summer with bear season. We probably used the city garbage pick up a third of the year, mostly during the winter. Not anymore, I can’t afford $6 for a bag of garbage on top of what I pay for city pick up.
As a family of four we recycle and have less than half a small container of garbage each week. The key here is to recycle and you won’t have the need to bring your household garbage twice per week.
Likewise. Our family of 5 downsized to a small container. We have yet to fill it with weekly pick-up. As with your family ours is typically half full.
when I look at the rubbish dumped at the end of North Nechako road I have to wonder what values or standards some people grow up with. Over the years we have cleaned up countless piles of household garbage and an array of broken furniture, old fridges, smashed plate glass windows,discarded televisions and on and on. We have hauled to the landfill and paid the tipping fees ourselves.
Yesterday some bozo dumped two used/dirty mattresses over the bank, there seems to be no end to it. We are installing modern security cameras to see what we can capture in images and hopefully we can nab a couple of the lazy SOB’S.
Two weeks ago four large bags of household garbage were thrown over the bank. I found 18 different references to the same person and was able to make a call and left a message that some “personal” effects were found at the end of North Nechako road and asked that they call me so that I could deliver it to their address. I got no call but overnight it got all cleaned up.
No correlation??? Ya right. I am sickened at the idiots who dump crap in the outback, but this was entirely predictable. Make it harder for people to use the landfill and guess what. Also the added fees for not having a token strap on your load, even if it is obviously not needed doesn’t help either. I experienced this first hand. If there is so much money in recycling metal, etc. Perhaps they could have a metal only bin and the district could pocket the money. The point is to keep this crap out of the bush. They need to have some bigger thinkers on this file or our backwoods will continue to look like a third world country.
Removing the transfer station from the bowl was also a very stupid decision. Who made it and why? Again, make it harder to get rid of garbage and the outcome will be entirely predictable. Very sad to see these photos.
This is what happens when you have poorly educated people as government representatives; they make extremely poor decisions and then refuse to admit their mistakes when they become obvious.
This was a terrible decision and I appealed to these people not to make it, and now we have a big mess – literally. Garbage collection and disposal needs to be an item of general taxation, especially with the demographics and socioeconomic factors at play in Prince George. This city is becoming one big dump and people will not pay these fees.
The number of visitors the landfill has declined dramatically since they introduced the fee. Do they really think the garbage just isn’t being generated anymore?
Just for future reference Burgess, a fee to dump where one didn’t exist before is a TAX, not an INCENTIVE. Get a clue.
This is what happens when you have poorly educated people as government representatives; they make extremely poor decisions and then refuse to admit their mistakes when they become obvious. How true ! This applies to every level of government . Imagine having an academic failure running a whole province . Let’s hope that never happens . You’d end up with a gong show wide open to ideologic demagoguery.
We have what is basically an academic failure running our country!
Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.
Are tipping fees to blame for illegal dumping??? Well no, people doing illegal dumping are to blame for illegal dumping!
So lets keep doing the status quo lenny. Except maybe hire a platoon of garbage rangers to patrol Northern BC at 100k a pop to enforce the law.
Or put some thought into making garbage disposal more effective.
You have to be pretty stupid not to know the outcome of that fee. Now how much is it going to cost to clean up this mess that bad decision making made? But hey for the short term they all patted them self on the back on how much less garbage was going to the dump by this move. The garbage piles are even 100 miles away on the back roads. And it is not slowing down or ending from what I seen.
100 miles away? I doubt anyone from PG drives that far to avoid dumping fees.
A person would pay for gas, wear & tear on their vehicle to drive to the middle of no where to dump their garbage, but won’t spring a few bucks to take it to a landfill? Yeah, that’s sound logic at work.
That’s the problem, logic isn’t involved. To expect it to be is illogical.
IM not so sure that eliminating dump fees would solve this problem. Human nature for what it is….is just plain laziness. Not even sure its just being lazy or that some individuals are just plain ignorant. Maybe we could have some fines that are high enough to help deter these trough feeders.
One of the problems with the tipping fee is the weight. Many people are turned away because it does not take many items to be over a 100 Kg and when it is you have to pay extra. Many people would pay the $6 if the max weight was removed or raised.
Absolutely right, oldman1. I don’t mind paying six bucks for a small load on a trailer I pull behind my sedan. But being charged 12 bucks for green branches (weight) that I cut off trees in my yard is a rip-off. That’s the last time I visited the Foothills Landfill
The RDFFG people must be scouring the site.
You know the Vanway station has a free dump side for yard waste… I’m not sure about the other sites.
Foothills is free for yard waste as well.
“Clean, source-separated yard and garden waste is received at no charge. Yard and garden waste is defined as leaves, grass and hedge clippings, grass sod, plants, flowers, shrub and tree branches up to 75 mm (3 inches) in diameter. Processed yard & garden waste includes tree pruning waste which has been chipped to less than 50 mm in any dimension.”
Tipping Fees suck!
Cost me $24 to dump some wood and ***from around my house.
And I had to use two bins. WTF?
Give me a big hole in the ground like it used to be and when we all used to recycle things b/c we could pick through stuff.
The dump sucks. it’s some pencil-neck, **** kissing idea of what a dump should be.
You should pay me to bring my ***there.
Roadside is where I’m looking next time.
I know there is a lot of crap being dumped that six dollars could take care of so there’s that issue. Myself I grumble and pay up when I need to make a dump run but this weekend I got an entirely new view of part of the problem.
I have a major renovation that I am doing and have generated aprox 24 sheets of drywall and a pick up full of roofing.
I made a dump run of other tear out debris and notice a sign at Vanway transfer station prohibiting drywall and roofing.
I googled the Foothills station to see if it goes there and it does, by weight, I see I also must tarp the loads and tie them down the way the pictures show or I get to pay double.
Now I am beginning to see why I’ve been finding piles of shingles and drywall when I am out on the back roads.
In my case it’s going to cost more than $24 and 30 min. I would have paid in tipping fees and it’s also going to take better than 3 hours of my time as well.
Strapping down loads is not just a landfill rule, it is illegal to have unsecured loads on all roadways, just ask CVSE.
We had a large dump trailer full of home renovation debris last summer and had no issues with the rules or cost. We live 20 minutes out side of the city and with the trip to the landfill dump and back it took less than 2 hours.
Every time the RDFFG is giving themselves a fat raise the whining starts and the tipping fees go up. Wow, Terry Burgess, you proudly confess how you make big bucks selling your recyclable junk. But imagine how much money the Foothills Landfill would make accepting all these items free of charge and reselling them. But Burgess’ expressed opinion is just gabble. Why would you do away with the swap shop (hint: resale) and put more restrictions on what is acceptable to bring to the landfill?
It is utterly disgusting to exploit volunteers (Spruce City Wildlife Association and concerned individuals) to clean up the mess the RDDFG is partly responsible of. The bottom line for corporations like the RDDFG is to operate with less hassle and give their employees a no-brainer environment.
Simple solution is come up with a formulae to incorporate these tipping fees etc into our annual taxes for residential and commercial. That way we don’t have to dick around with the tipping fees and ideally this will help reduce the illegal dumping that is going around Prince George.
The Quinn St., transfer station and Sani Dump should never have been closed. This was a decision made by the previous Council, and supposedly having the transfer station closed and the garbage taken to the Foothills Landfill and looked after by the RDFFG would save the City some $250,000.00 per year. Of course it would cost the RDFFG this amount so they want to collect the fee’s to get their money back.
We would still have to pay the fee if the transfer station had remained open, however we would avoid the long drive, and all the horse s..t attached to hauling and dumping at Foothills.
You can still take your yard waste to the Quinn St., station, and also paper, and plastics, however NO garbage. No fee for paper, or plastics.
So I seriously question the Cities numbers on this latest fiasco, mainly because we are now looking at a perfectly good transfer station that cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars to build and it sits empty. The City also closed the Sani Dump, and of course had a perfectly good reason for doing so. (They always have perfectly good reasons for what they do.)
The closing of the Quinn St., transfer station, and Sani Dump, coincided quite nicely with the City Staff moving into their new offices, directly West of the Transfer station. Could they have closed the Transfer station because of the smell from the garbage, and sani dump if the wind was right?? Who knows. In any event I suspect we will hear more about this transfer station in the not to distant future.
Meanwhile Allens Scrap have a bin on the North Side of 1st Ave, and George St., where you can dump metal, etc; so that helps a little bit.
Having all these vehicles driving back and forth to Foothills, is another way to increase greenhouse gas emissions, however who cares about that??
To determine competency one has to have at least an attempt at defining what competence is and how to measure the level of competency.
I do not care who is responsible for the decision to add a dumping fee, what it should be added to, how much it should be and what the effect solicited was expected to be. If all one has is an anecdotal piece of information from the person or one of the persons responsible for the decision which determines success, failure or no change, then I know that we do not have a competent evaluation system.
When one reads the report and the words of Burgess, they just do not make sense to me.
BC Conservation Service Sgt. Rory Smith says those caught polluting could face anything from a $575 fine to imprisonment. – So how many incidents have they had?
Time to put the individuals in charge of this department on notice, identify the measurable changes required over the next year, and hire someone else then if no significant changes to the program.
The Kootenays have no tipping fee and their highways are spotless, as is the backcountry
tipping fees could well be one of the reasons for illegal dumping, so could people not having the ability to drag their stuff out to the dump ( no truck) or maybe it is just laziness.
no fees. I should not have to check my wallet to make sure I’ve got enough money to bring my home maintenance debris like wood, tree trimmings and concrete to the dump. That’s another bullshit cash grab. And let me dump it on the ground. Before we had all these stupid rules and bins most everyone took care to dump stuff in respective areas: wood here, metal there, appliances over here so others could salvage from them for parts, etc. It worked fine before we had a gate, scale and signs explaining the rules. Give me a big hole in the ground like it used to be.
Laziness and an over bloated sense of entitlement are the issues, not a paltry $6 charge.
They are all issues axman. Humans are cheap,lazy and entitled. The challenge is to mitigate these traits and keep the bush clean.
Burgess states his rational for tipping fees not having an impact on illegal dumping is that the lower mainland having these fees and increasing them 40% had no impact on illegal dumping. Well Terry, we have have hundreds of places for idiots to dump crap unnoticed. Does Abbotsford?
Next thing you know you will have to remove your footwear at the gate and rent specialized boots and other equipment before you can unload your items. It’s plain and simple- we already pay enough taxes to take care of this tipping fee. Maybe I should not have given them any more ideas on rental of gear.
There should be a map of the problem areas and a direct phone number to Terry who should be held accountable to cleaning it up, or lose his job. Maybe after hours and hours of work he will begin to realise there is a problem.
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