
Bear going through garbage bins for food/via OCC Outdoors
You’re not going to be forced to purchase bear-resistant garbage and organics bins if you’re a property owner in Kamloops.
After trialing the idea of a city-wide concept for the past year or so in Juniper West, the City’s Livability and Sustainability Committee has accepted a request by Environmental Services Manager Glen Farrow that bear-resistant bins be optional, rather than required.
Farrow says one of the major concerns was cost.
“One of the key things in this is the significant cost of $5.1 million dollars to make this shift to make this change across the whole community,” noted Farrow in a presentation to the Committee on Tuesday morning.
He says there are also concerns the mandatory change would prompt owners to leave their bins outside when they’re not supposed to.
“It smells, its nasty, I don’t want it in my garage. I’m gonna now moving forward, leave it outside,” said of concerns Farrow raised with the Committee. “That’s not the behavior that we’re looking to have here, but keep it secured in enclosures, in garages.”
Farrow also noted that not every community in Kamloops would require, or be able to accommodate, bear-resistant carts.
“A lot of the carts that remain in laneways in the downtown and north shore neighborhoods do not leave those lanes. They should. They don’t,” pointed out Farrow. “So how would the customer effectively unlatch the container to be ready to go for collection day.”
Instead, the proposal is to have the City pay around $200 thousand dollars to buy a thousand bear-resistant garbage and organics bins, which the city will then lease to those who want them.
“Staff recommend that the initial cost of purchasing the bear-resistant carts funded by the Solid Waste Reserve,” noted a staff report put before the Committee. “The cost of a non-bear-resistant 120 L organics or garbage cart is approximately $70, and the cost of a bear-resistant 120 L cart is $195. To offset the $125 cost difference, staff propose increasing the annual cart lease fee by $20 per bear-resistant cart.”

Bear-resistant garbage bin damaged by a bear trying to access its contents. City said the contents remained inside/via City of Kamloops
The same $20 added fee per year would be applied to organics carts for those who want them.
The recommendations accepted by the Sustainability and Livability Committee still need to be approved by the whole of Kamloops council.
Move based partly on results of survey
A survey conducted by the City of Kamloops shows that while there is concern about bear interactions within various parts of the city, there is very little appetite among home owners to pay added costs to try to limit it.
The City says of the 548 responses, the majority of survey said they lived in the Juniper Ridge, Dallas, and Barnhartvale neighborhoods.
It found the following results:
• 57% of respondents believe that unsecured solid waste carts are the main wildlife attractant in their neighbourhood.
• 62% of respondents have observed a bear on their property or in their neighbourhood in the past year.
• 49% of the bear sightings were of bears accessing garbage.
• 31% of respondents have had a bear access their solid waste carts.
• 50% of respondents indicated that not having a shed or garage to securely store their carts is their biggest barrier to properly storing these wildlife attractants.
• 66% of respondents believe bear-resistant carts will help minimize wildlife conflicts in their neighborhoods.
• 57% of respondents believe both garbage and organics solid waste carts should be bear-resistant.
• 32% of respondents indicated they would be willing to pay $20 or less a year for a bear-resistant cart.
• 18% of respondents indicated they would be willing to pay $20–$40 a year for a bear-resistant cart