June 22, 2006

CANMORE, Alberta — In the 1990s, Canmore was having all sorts of problems with bears arriving to pick through garbage cans. In response, the municipality created 60 animal-proof bins and instituted a curb-side pickup system. Still, that wasn’t enough, so it ended the curb-side collection and added more animal-proof containers, now 176 altogether. A majority have been paid for by developers and found in new subdivisions.
At $2 million, the containers, concrete bases and enclosures were expensive. But the number of habituated bears has dropped, town officials tell the Rocky Mountain Outlook. If some problems remain, Canmore’s animal-proofing system seems among the best around, which is why both Whistler and Revelstoke have studied it.

Meanwhile, Canmore is studying Banff’s year-old experiment. There, garbage is being collected and composted along with solid waste from the wastewater treatment facility.