City rolls out bear-resistant garbage carts in Hart Highlands

The City of Prince George will be introducing approximately 300 bear-resistant garbage carts to the Hart Highlands Croft neighbourhood.

Laurie-Ann Kosec, Strategic Parks Planner for the City of Prince George told MyPGNow that the Croft neighbourhood is one of the areas in Prince George that are frequented by bears, which is why the community has been chosen for the pilot project.

Residents in the area will receive the carts for free on their regularly scheduled garbage collection day on April 15.

The city has already been deploying bear-resistant bins at civic facilities throughout the city, particularly along trails and the river, which are more likely to be frequented by bears.

“These carts have a gravity locking mechanism,” said Kosec. “So it makes it very difficult for a bear to get into, but somebody can easily open it with one hand to put their garbage into.”

The project is planned for two years, with the city monitoring how effective the bins are, as well as also looking into implementing the bins into other neighbourhoods depending on how effective the carts are found to be.

A bear-resistant bin is about five times the price of a regular, large-sized City bin, which is part of the reason as to why they are being tested as a pilot project.

“This is a new product. These mechanisms are new in the market,” said Kosec regarding the cost of the bins.

According to Kosec, Prince George has the highest number of bear sightings in the province, and an average of 35 local bears are destroyed every year as they usually cannot be successfully rehabilitated after they get used to seeking out garbage.

“The unfortunate situation in Prince George is of all the bears that are destroyed in the province, 81 per cent of those bears are in Prince George. So it is speaking to a problem we have with managing our garbage and attractants like fruit. It’s really a combination of things to reduce human-bear conflict and reduce the number of bears that are destroyed here locally.”

City bylaws require that residents place carts at the curb no earlier than 4 a.m. on collection day and remove them by 7:00 p.m. the same day or risk being subjected to a $100 fine.