Feb
7
Save the orphan garbage cans!
Feb 2013
By George Jamieson
Do you have a new use for a perfectly good garbage can? Thousands of them will be available this spring, for free. Many of them are headed for recycling heaps.
As you likely know, the City of Victoria is changing the way it picks up and handles garbage. It is giving new bins to every home that relies on city crews for garbage pickup. This is to increase compost and reduce landfill.
This is generally a good thing. However, it means all the existing garbage containers will be "orphaned". City crews won't take the old cans away.
If you have old containers in your yard, it is your business to find a new use for them, or take them to the recycling depot, which can cost you. The city recommends using them to store your emergency kit.
Otherwise, you take it to the recycling depot. If you have plastic containers, you pay 9 dollars per load to recycle them at the city facility on David Street. Or, you can take them to a company in Saanich for free. If you have a metal can, a different recycling depot on David Street will take it, also for free.
There are approximately 14 thousand garbage cans in Victoria, according to a city estimate. Many of the cans are old and broken; the best thing is for them to be crushed or ground down and made into something else. But many are in perfect working order... waiting for someone to give them a new home. Any ideas?
Are there schools than can use these bins for student projects or storage? Non-profit groups that can use bins for their own work, or distribute them to people who need them? Buskers who want a set of street drums bigger then anything Keith Moon ever smashed?
Ask yourself, ask everyone you know. The more ideas, the more garbage cans we can save from being melted down or crushed. You don't want the buskers to get them all, do you?
For more information about the new collection system:
To recycle existing cans (please phone ahead to confirm):