Pickering resident, landowner, upset at increase of illegal dumping
Jul 03, 2009 - 04:30 AM
By Kristen Calis
PICKERING -- Cathy Bitondo lives in Pickering but believes she's being affected by the Toronto garbage strike.
The 61-year-old said the land she and her husband own in north Pickering, which is up for sale and not currently attractive due to the increasing garbage, is being used as a dump.
One of the entrances to the land is filled with heavy bags of sod, something Mrs. Bitondo admits may be from locals, as well as garbage. But the next entrance is filled with random trash from printers to sports equipment to lawn chairs.
"The garbage is strewn all over," she said assessing the garbage Thursday morning. "That's not nice. That's a shame."
The Toronto civic strike began on Monday, June 22, and City garbage, green bin and recycling collection has also halted. Toronto has set up 19 temporary dump sites on top of its seven transfer stations, but they're filling up fast. Mrs. Bitondo said the dumping has been going on for some time, but has noticed an increase since the strike began. Dumping probably encourages others to do the same, she said, so she asks that people simply stop.
"The other day it was so smelly," she said.
"We try to keep our Ajax and Pickering clean."
Neighbour Anne Baun says the problem has been continuous for the past few years.
"I feel like we live between two garbage dumps," she said, adding the dumping takes away from her nice property, which people often compliment.
Mrs. Bitondo and her husband have put rocks on at least one entrance to deter the dumping, but she thinks people should just take their waste to a legal dump.
But she may have to take it to the transfer station herself, which costs about $100 per 1,000 kilograms, said Richard Holborn, Pickering's division head of municipal property and engineering.
"If it ends up on their property, unfortunately they're the new owners of it," he said, adding illegal dumping is something the City deals with occasionally on its own property.
"Unless we catch somebody in the act of doing it we can't do anything (about) it," he said.
Even if mail is found in a garbage bag, the City cannot charge the person the envelope is addressed to because it could have been dumped by someone else, such as a company that person has hired to remove waste.
If people see someone illegally dumping, however, they can call Eyes on the Street at 905-420-4666. Although the program's main purpose is to notify the property owner of vandalism or dumping, or remove it if it's on City land, Pickering will follow up if there's a vehicle description, time and date.
Mr. Holborn thinks Mrs. Bitondo's idea to put rocks on the driveways is a good deterrent.
Although the City used to patrol illegal dumping regularly in the past, especially with the closing of the Brock West Landfill in the late 1990s, it's now done very minimally.
"We've tried to heighten our patrols on the west end because of the strike," he said.
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