It’s a messy and costly problem in Saskatoon that is even more apparent in spring. Illegal dumping in parks, on roadways and back alleys has resentful residents having to deal with the rubbish.
“Look at this – it’s a landfill site,” Shelia Boese, who says she she’s fed-up and frustrated with the amount of trash being dumped behind her home on Avenue C North, said.
“There’s clothes, here’s a couch, there’s boards there.”
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It’s unsightly garbage Boese says she’s left dealing with each and every year after moving to the area five years ago.
“It’s a nuisance. I talked six times last year to city hall, I’ve talked to the mayor’s office, I’ve talked to waste management to ask what are you going to do about this?”
It’s a not so secret and dirty little problem that city council has been trying to tackle for quite some time.
“It’s an issue that the city is trying to work on,” Ward 5 city councillor Randy Donauer said.
“We’re trying to make it easy and accessible to get into the landfill, we sometimes adapt hours and sometimes change our fees just to encourage people to take things that they need to out there but it can be an issue especially in spring.”
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Some neighbourhoods have a community clean-up day to address unwanted trash. There are also city hotlines you can call to help haul away the junk.
“I think the work that we’re doing around Recovery Park and looking to have a better more comprehensive, clearer more, accessible waste management facility is going to help,” Ward 2 councillor Hilary Gough, who receives a lot of complaints concerning this issue, said.
“But we do need to be cognizant about the fees that we’re charging and how accessible facilities are so it’s a bit of a longer term question than what can we do right now with one couch being dumped somewhere.”
Clean-up costs to the city are nearly $80,000 a year which according to city officials doesn’t include debris dumped in parks or on roadways.
“One of the things that frustrates me is – we tend to legislate solutions or have to legislate solutions to what I would call ‘common sense’ problems,” Donauer said.
By being a little more considerate with your clutter, the tens of thousands of dollars saved could be used to hire an additional pothole patching crew this summer or shifted towards something else in the city budget.
To report back alley dumping call the customer service centre at 1-306-975-2476.
If the trash doesn’t obstruct the back alley and it’s on private property it will fall to the city’s safety and property maintenance department at 1-306-975-2828.