Illegal dumping: Why do so many Canadians trash Canada?

All this talk of people dumping their shit out in the woods, but one needs only walk down any East Van alley to see that people really do have an out of my sight, not my problem mentality…

Yeah I think this a function of various levels of near or outright poverty ie no car to haul no $ for cab or pick up etc just carry out back walk away…….

on another angle though taking a dump in the woods can be an oddly satisfying experience.

Depends if you got butt wipe w/u or not.

Litter in the city doesn't matter. From an environmental standpoint you're just throwing a little piece of garbage onto a massive one.

I'm going to strongly disagree with the above "solution" to illegal dumping.
Just because trash is disposed of "correctly", doesn't mean it magically becomes fairy dust. There's a large societal / energy cost to all trash disposal so I don't think it should be free.

The focus should be on reducing trash in the 1st place: reduce, reuse, recycle.

Not sure about the rest of BC, but in the lower mainland, there are lots of resources for recycling all sorts of items (many of it for free), so its only a matter of laziness if people decide to illegally dump stuff next to an FSR somewhere.
Lots of items that are commonly dumped illegally are actually free to recycle:
Electronics (TVs, computers etc…): free to dispose of at Return-it depots (this is subsidized by the environmental handling fee charged on electronics at time of purchase).
Large metal appliances (fridges, stoves, etc): free to recycle at lower mainland wastech sites
Info on how to recycle products all over BC: http://www.rcbc.bc.ca/

Not entirely sure what the solution to illegal dumping is. Its obviously being done by inconsiderate, lazy people so not sure a "reasonable" solution would make a difference.
I do think fines should be huge, but the problem is: how do you catch the illegal dumpers?

Yes and no.

Sadly as I have observed in and around Toronto. Certain areas and communities are more shall we say it seems culturally inclined to treating woods, creeks, and such as their dumping grounds.

Now on a interesting side note. The biggest thing I noticed when I came to Toronto is the sheer quantity of bottles, cans and such…stuff that cane be recycled. And you get money back if you do. Nothing like that here and it shows based on the crap tossed every where. To bad their isn't….many low income types could benefit from that.

Lots of items that are commonly dumped illegally are actually free to recycle:
Electronics (TVs, computers etc…): free to dispose of at Return-it depots (this is subsidized by the environmental handling fee charged on electronics at time of purchase).

Then they get shipped to China or other developing countries where they sit in large uncovered piles. Then they get rained on, leech chemicals down into the water table and give all the locals cancer and other illnesses.

we got single stream recycling you get a big green bin for garb and a big blue for everything but soft plastic and everybody seems into it the dump is close to town AKA "the telkwa mall" aasnd there are no tipping fees

do you need to pay when you bring your garbage to a recycling place?

do you need to pay when you bring your garbage to a recycling place?

We don't bring garbage to the recycle place.

It seems pretty inconsistent at best, I've heard of guys being charged 15 bucks to get rid of empty propane bottles and other shit where as other people at other places don't get charged much if anything.

I'm going to strongly disagree with the above "solution" to illegal dumping.
Just because trash is disposed of "correctly", doesn't mean it magically becomes fairy dust. There's a large societal / energy cost to all trash disposal so I don't think it should be free.

The focus should be on reducing trash in the 1st place: reduce, reuse, recycle.

Not sure about the rest of BC, but in the lower mainland, there are lots of resources for recycling all sorts of items (many of it for free), so its only a matter of laziness if people decide to illegally dump stuff next to an FSR somewhere.
Lots of items that are commonly dumped illegally are actually free to recycle:
Electronics (TVs, computers etc…): free to dispose of at Return-it depots (this is subsidized by the environmental handling fee charged on electronics at time of purchase).
Large metal appliances (fridges, stoves, etc): free to recycle at lower mainland wastech sites
Info on how to recycle products all over BC: http://www.rcbc.bc.ca/

Not entirely sure what the solution to illegal dumping is. Its obviously being done by inconsiderate, lazy people so not sure a "reasonable" solution would make a difference.
I do think fines should be huge, but the problem is: how do you catch the illegal dumpers?

Most dumps have an attendant that inspects your load and requires you to seperate your recyclables and hazardous materials out before continuing onto the general trash area. If we had 0 tipping fees then these recyclables would still go to the right place.

Half the drivers on the road can't be bothered to move their finger 5 cm to signal a turn or lane change. And we're surprised people won't make the effort to sort their garbage/recyclables and take them to the right places?

do you need to pay when you bring your garbage to a recycling place?

you are in germany aren't you?

not up here but really we have "garbage" which can't be recycled and "recycling" which can be recycled

we pay for the pickup service in our town taxes but lots of people who are in the regional district (rural) don't have "garbage" pickup so they need to take their own garbage to "the Telkwa mall" which they toss for free

in town we have always had weekly collection of garbage, it always went into the big green bin with wheels which went to the curb and was being PU every week, but now it only gets PU every second week because they gave us a second big blue bin with wheels for recycling which gets PU every other week the idea being that half the house hold garbage could be recycled and it seems to work

The people out of town who have to take their garbage to the transfer station don't have offical recycling but I think a lot of them bring their recycling into town to dump in a friends bin or SFT

Filled this box 4 times this year with all the empties hauled out of the trails and tracks around here.

Yes and no.
Sadly as I have observed in and around Toronto. Certain areas and communities are more shall we say it seems culturally inclined to treating woods, creeks, and such as their dumping grounds.

Aargh. I have so many memories of this near the trails in the lower Don around Thornlea. It seems to be a distinctly cultural issue - people are just doing what they did back home: treat the landscape like a garbage dump. And it all finds its way into the Don Valley.

Aargh. I have so many memories of this near the trails in the lower Don around Thornlea. It seems to be a distinctly cultural issue - people are just doing what they did back home: treat the landscape like a garbage dump. And it all finds its way into the Don Valley.

They do the same thing in the Rouge Valley. New development on the edge and within a year looked like they dumped a few bin trucks. Only thing is….to do that would have required a helicopter.

Apparently the new trend is now dumping food into the rivers as some kind of religious thing.

Back in the day we actually gathered a dozen garbage bags of the stuff up and emptied it out in the foyer of the adjacent building (it was Earth Day after all). It was misguided but it felt so good.