Williams Lake community rallying to clean up illegal dumping

Kyle Deakin was driving near his home in Williams Lake when he saw something that forced him to take a second look.

"We turned off the main road right near Highway 20 and it was all over. There was just trash all over," he said.

He found piles of garbage including tires, old appliances and construction waste.

"This particular instance is probably the worst I've come across."

Deakin says the dumping site — located on Bond Lake Road — is quite accessible, likely leading people to choose it as an illegal dumping area.

He has now reached out to his community to ask for help cleaning up the mess and says he's already had a strong response.

"It's only been a couple of days and we've already had a good handful of people step forward."

District challenged by illegal dumping

The Cariboo Regional District has already offered to waive the tipping fees at the main Williams Lake dumping site. District chair Al Richmond says it's not standard practice to waive fees, but staff wanted to show support for the cleanup effort.

"In this case, the community has said 'we don't like it and we're prepared to do something about it' — and we're prepared to partner with them to see that happen," said Richmond.

The district makes an effort to discourage illegal dumping by making it free to leave garbage at regional transfer sites, but people are still choosing to take garbage into areas of the bush.

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"Some people just don't want to take the extra effort to take it into the transfer stations to have it handled properly," said Richmond.

"We haven't been plagued with it, but we certainly have had challenges with it."

Community steps up

Local businesses have volunteered to help out. Central Cariboo Disposal — a garbage pickup and recyling company — has taken a large bin out to the area so it can be loaded with garbage and then transferred to the local landfill. The company deals with residential and commercial garbage pick up and recycling in the region. 

Area manager Dan Harrison said he heard about the Kyle Deakin's call to action and wanted to help.

"I wanted to get him a bin out there because I heard he was making trip after trip after trip in a small pickup truck, so he's never going to get to the bottom of it if we don't step up and help."

Harrison finds it frustrating to hear about people continuing to dump in the Williams Lake area.

"We have many transfer stations in the area where people can come and dump their stuff for free," he said.

"I don't understand why they would chose a natural habitat like that to dump."

Deakin is planning to go to the Bond Lake Road site on the weekend to continue the cleanup effort.