Some St. Francois Xavier residents need a lesson in how to dispose of their trash, according to municipal public works operator Kelly Ducharme.

A contractor was less than pleased when Ducharme recently suggested he make more than one stop inside St. Francois Xavier’s municipal dump to properly dispose of various items in the load of garbage he was hauling.

The contractor wasn’t the only visitor to the dump who wanted to avoid to avoid sorting their garbage into separate types of waste and dispose of them in the marked location within the Rosser Road grounds.

 Ducharme pointed out the signs that clearly mark the areas for waste items such as appliances and scrap metal, tires, shingles, e-waste, industrial oil, wood, and household waste. He and his fellow workers try to direct people to the correct spots when they enter the dump, but it’s hard to keep an eye on everyone.

The grounds are open Wednesdays from noon to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Municipal residents can dispose of their waste for free, and Ducharme realizes that there are some people using the dump who don’t live within the municipality. He said they are trying to avoid paying the fees charged at Winnipeg’s Brady Road Landfill.

The municipality has two recycling depots consisting of large metal bins for cardboard, paper, plastics and a separate bin for glass. The bins sometimes fill up quickly or the openings become closed because of wind. When this happens, Ducharme said, people tend to drop bags of recyclables next to the bins instead of saving them to deposit when there’s room available.

 "People are just impatient," he said. A recycling company is called when the bins need to be emptied.

There’s also an extra cost to having municipal public works staff watch the grounds and clean up improperly placed garbage and recycled items, said SFX chief administrative officer Robert Poirier.

The annual budget for waste disposal is about $50,000. Poirier said the municipality is paid for recycled material.

"If everyone recycled as much as possible, we could probably run the nuisance grounds on a cost-neutral basis."

 However, he said, if problems persist at the dump, there could come a time when residents will have to pay for their trash to be picked up.

 

andrea.geary@canstarnews.com