Jul 26 2006

By the time the leaves begin to turn, all residential garbage will be collected after 8 a.m. in the hopes of preventing bear attractants from sitting on the curb the night before pickup.

“Bears are far more likely to get into garbage at night when people are asleep,” says Louise Williams, Bear Aware co-ordinator. “So if it’s put out later in the morning, there’s traffic, there’s people and that will scare the bears away.” Williams says this change will reap enormous benefits.

“We’ll see fewer bears coming into town and we’ll see safer communities. Plus, we’ll have fewer calls to the RCMP to come and handle situations,” Williams states.

Williams says gathering key data over the last two seasons helped illustrate the cause and effect of early garbage pickup times. She says, for example, the data shows that areas where garbage is picked up as early as 5:30 a.m. people are putting it out the night before and these are areas with some of the highest number of bear sightings.

Some people, especially in areas noted for the number of bear sightings, put their garbage out in the early evening the night before pickup, up to 14 hours before it gets taken away.

Williams has also seen residents try to put out their garbage just before pickup and then realize they missed it because of inconsistent pickup times.

“So many people have told me that they’d really like to put their bins out in the morning but they just can’t,” says Williams.

Officials agree that the new start time should enable people to put out their bins in the morning at a reasonable time and limit the length of time bear attractants sit on the curb.

“It will make the community safer and it will make your property safer,” says Phil Taylor, Town of Golden chief administrative officer.

At the open council meeting held Tuesday, July 18, council supported the recommendation to change the garbage pickup cycle to accommodate a later garbage pick up service in

Golden.

Town staff and council worked with Williams, other Bear Aware volunteers, the Columbia Shuswap Regional Distict (CSRD) and Waste Management (WM) to co-ordinate the change.

Taylor says although all parties were interested in keeping Golden safe, it took two years for the timing and co-ordination

lorene keitch

Star Reporter