City launching bear-resistant garbage bins pilot project

The City is launching a pilot project aimed at making garbage bins less attractive to hungry bears.

In order to make this happen, the city has purchased 300, bear-resistant garbage bins and will be swapping them for the normal garbage bins this spring.

The City will be working alongside Northern Bear Awareness Society and the BC Conservation Service to determine what area to launch the project in.

“As with any pilot project, the City is going to be monitoring the success of these bins and listening to feedback from residents,” says Sean LeBrun, Manager of Parks and Solid Waste.

“We will also continue to work with the Northern Bear Awareness Society and BC Conservation Society to identify the areas of the city that will most benefit from these bins due to a particularly high volume of calls to the Service Centre about problems with bears.”

These bins will be similar in size to the large city bins and will be more robust in design. Even though they will be difficult for the bear to move, they will be light enough to be manoeuvred by humans.

The automated bins will remain locked until they are almost fully inverted by a city vehicle during garbage collection. The locking mechanism is easy to unlock with one hand and will prevent bears from opening the container with claws, paws or teeth.

It should be noted that there is a significant price difference between the city bins, which are about $70, and the bear-resistant bins, which will come in at $235.

Visit the Wildsafe BC website to learn more about bear safety.