Photo Courtesy Grant Purdue

By Caden Fanshaw

GARBAGE GALORE

‘We need harder fines’ : PG man fed up with illegal dumping

Dec 30, 2020 | 5:33 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – After coming through over 20 bags of garbage, Grant Purdue has had enough.

“We need harder fines, we need harder penalties,” says Purdue. “The conservation officers and local authorities say their hands are tied a little bit, and I wouldn’t go out to say we need more vigilante justice but we need more people paying attention.”

But this dump was beyond bizarre.

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amidst the garbage, there was some treasure to be had, Purdue says around a dozen bags of recyclables were dumped, later donating them to a local 4-H group to collect the bottle money.

But where there is a small victory, there is a bigger problem.

Purdue says if people see suspicious behaviour on forest service roads, they should be taking down license plates to err on the side of caution.

He says anyone who is driving down a remote road with a full load of garbage is probably going to do the deed.

The Regional District of Fraser-Fort George says larger fines isn’t within their jurisdiction instead the Ministry of Environment would have to be involved for incidents outside city limits.

“This is not a new problem,” says Rachael Ryder, Waste Diversion Program Leader with the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George.

Ryder says the key messaging is for the public to know where the 18 regional district transfer sites are, and when they’re open. You can find all of that information on their website found here.

The location of this illegal dump is an exceptionally odd one says Ryder, who says whoever did this drove a long way away to dump it in a very visible spot from the highway.

The culprit is still unknown, and the investigation remains ongoing.