People with pickups, vehicles with trailers, and even cars loaded down with refuse lined up at the gate to the Barriere landfill before opening time on April 17th. They were all there to take advantage of the Thompson Nicola Regional District’s $20 free dump day.
The event was well organized; and with two attendants at the gate it did not take long to sluice the vehicles through. Once at the unloading site there was good signage so people knew where to unload their different waste materials. With two more attendants on site, anyone who needed help navigating to the correct disposal stops could quickly get the information they needed. (Something that was not often required because the Barriere landfill is well laid out and maintained).
Jackie Nicholson, the landfill’s weekday attendant commented about keeping the site maintained, “It takes a lot of time to pick up stuff after the wind has scattered it, or the crows have picked up and dropped off bits and pieces everywhere.”
Dennis LaBrie, the TNRD’s Environmental Services Supervisor, located in Kamloops, explained the reason for the $20 limit on what residents could bring in.
“Because of our philosophy of encouraging recycling and only throwing away things that cannot be recycled we cannot encourage unlimited free dumping,” said LaBrie, “The last time we did not have any limits, and as a result our demolition pit received greater than the volume of one-third of a year’s worth of material in one day. This is counter productive to our philosophy of recycling that we are trying to instill in residents.”
Labrie also stated that the total loads brought in for the day were 264; this number amounts to over two-and-a-half times as much as on a usual busy Saturday at the landfill.
Except for a sudden snow storm that dampened down everybody’s enthusiasm for awhile, the limited free dump day was by all accounts a success.