TRENTON
The Red Cross donation collection bins in Trenton are once again the centre of an unsightly clutter and a great deal of disappointment on the part of town council.
The site near Main Street where the bins are located is once again littered with unrequested items and garbage where people are dumping them.
At the June 26 committee of the whole meeting for Trenton council, planning and development officer Rachael MacLean suggested one way to deal with the issue of dumping leading to unsightly clutter at the bins would be to move them to town property.
Council members said however that moving the bins would only be displacing the same problem.
“If you go and put them at the rink, they’re going to do the same thing,” said Coun. VJ Earle.
Coun. Don Hussher suggested that the problem was unique to the Red Cross bins, since the Diabetes Society bins are promptly cleaned by their owners when similar issues arise.
Coun. Alex Dove said the bins need to be in an area that is more visible, “not the back of a corner somewhere, where you can park a truck, wait until a car drives by, and throw your chesterfield out, and keep going.”
MacLean stressed the need for more accountability, referring to the fact that a great deal of garbage is getting into the nearby creek from the accumulations around the bins.
Council acknowledged the fact that people are too comfortable dumping garbage and unwanted items there, even in broad daylight.
“The problem is citizens abusing it,” said Mayor Shannon MacInnis. “It becomes our problem when it becomes a mess.”
CAO Brian White suggested that a possibility, instead of banning the bins outright, would be to create a bylaw that licences them and allows the owners of the bins to keep them in town only if conditions are followed.
“If it’s an ongoing mess, we can then remove the licence and have the bins removed,” suggested White, who noted he’d have to do some research on the matter to see what the town can and cannot do in such an approach.
“We don’t want to punish them,” said Earle, indicating that it would be unfair to the Red Cross, since it’s locals who are dumping unwanted items and garbage at the site.
White agreed, acknowledging that the bins are only partly owned by Red Cross to begin with.
Council acknowledged that similar bins in other areas in Pictou County have much less unwanted clutter, usually because of better management or surveillance, such as bins located near Superstore on Westville Road.
However, council decided that a strong message must be sent to the owners. After deciding that surveillance with cameras was not a realistic option, council recommended sending a letter to the owners of the bins, instructing them to keep them in a clean and orderly manner.
MacLean brought the issue to council months after the issue previously came to a head in January, when Trenton requested that the Red Cross clean up the mess that had accumulated, consisting of furniture, garbage and other unaccepted items.
