Lunenburg County man fed up with illegal dumping
'I'm so sick of picking up tampons, you have no idea'
A discarded Sony TV, smashed into two pieces in the middle of the LaHave River, was the last straw for a Lunenburg County man.
Kevin Emino and his family live near Wentzells Lake, in between Bridgewater and New Germany. By day, he's an autobody technician, but he spends much of his free time cleaning up illegal dump sites near his home.
"I like where I live and I think it's the right thing, and if somebody doesn't do it, it's not going to be a very pleasant place to live," he told CBC's Information Morning.
Emino and his wife often hook a trailer up to their ATV and ride along the road near their house, collecting everything from minor litter, to discarded appliances and Christmas decorations, to household garbage and personal hygiene items.
"I'm so sick of picking up tampons, you have no idea," he said.
Emino says the road has two particular areas that seem to be hot spots for illegal dumping; one with easy access and a quick hiding place between two hills, and another with a steep embankment where culprits drop trash over the guardrail, where it plummets into the LaHave River.
"There's always been these two dumping sites, this spring it seems to be ramped up," he said. "When you start seeing big TVs in the LaHave River — come on, people. Get with it. It's just not a good thing."
Miserable people
The Eminos sort through all of the trash they collect, recycling and composting what they can. The rest ends up in his dumpster at work.
Lunenburg County has all of the proper outlets — most free of charge — for residents to dispose of unwanted things. Emino says he doesn't know why people choose to dump their trash illegally, but he has his theories.
"I just think there's a certain percentage of the public, of society today, they're just miserable. They're miserable in their lives, they're miserable in everything they do and think and they just don't care," he said.
As for the TV, Emino says the river is too high for him to pick it out of the river. But he's determined, and once the rain subsides he plans to put on the hip waders and haul it out of the water.
With files from Information Morning