Illegal dumping an eyesore,
Environmental advocate, resident speak out against garbage culprits
SYDNEY — The sight of something unusual caught Brenda MacLean's attention during her recent visit to St. Joseph's Holy Family Cemetery in Reserve Mines.
“From my family's grave site, I could see something up in the distance,” said MacLean, who lives in Glace Bay. “There's this roadway where they often dump extra soil for the graveyard.”
What drew MacLean's curiosity eventually disgusted her: A pile of garbage lying on the ground — including an old toilet.
“I guess somebody just drove in there and dumped all this stuff,” she said. “I was wondering if whoever dumped this was trying to get to the dump and it happened to be closed on that day, I don't know,” MacLean said. “To me, it's just laziness.”
Before the pile was cleaned up, MacLean posted photos of the garbage on social media, which garnered a barrage of comments. It also prompted other social media users to display similarly photographed illegally dumped garbage along roadsides, hidden from drivers' views but noticeable whenever residents go for walks.
With the recent spring rainfall, many areas of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality have now been exposed to excess garbage, recycling and general litter on the ground. While the heavy garbage witnessed by MacLean was eventually cleaned up, plastic bottles, coffee cups and such were strewn around the top end of St. Joseph's Holy Family Cemetery.
From April 2020 until the end of March, the municipality's solid waste management department received a total of 238 calls connected to alleged illegal dumping, "with 204 of these connected to dumping and the remaining 34 calls connected to litter, curbside non-compliance issues, etc.," solid waste education co-ordinator Roschell Clarke said.
The department often contacts a Cape Breton Regional Police officer tasked with investigating illegal dumping.
“We get a lot of information from the public,” Const. Arnold MacKinnon said. “We take the information, go out and see what's happening and if the information warrants charges to be laid, then we lay charges.”
According to municipal bylaws, anyone caught illegally dumping will face a maximum $697.50 fine.
Apart from being an eyesore on land, the president of the Port Morien Wildlife Association says the illegal dumping of heavy garbage items poses an even greater risk to waterways.
“What we do in our organization is help with raising fish and stocking lakes, streams and rivers as a province initiative with Nova Scotia Fisheries and Aquaculture,” said Jeff McNeil. “If we don't clean up garbage that people throw into streams, it defeats the purpose of what our organization is doing.
“What people don't realize is these waterways, with all this garbage dumped in it, seeps into our drinking water.”
McNeil, along with Cape Breton Environmental Association president Dylan Yates, want to see more active involvement from the municipality in enforcing stiffer penalties for those caught illegally dumping garbage.
“We really have to start with stiffer fines, recovery of fine payments and maintenance enforcement,” McNeil said. “Because you can give out all the $697.50 fines you want, but if you can't recoup that fine and set a prime example to the community, if doesn't matter if you're low income or high income, that fine isn't worth the paper it's written on.”
MacLean would also like to see the CBRM revisit the issue of heavy garbage disposal and pickup.
Her idea: “Maybe there should be dumpsters set up where you can dispose a lamp, a chair, a broken toy, or a bike that's no good to you and place it in dumpsters located in specific areas, and not be charged for dumping them.”