Almost anyone up at the lake who likes to hike or get out into nature on their ATV or in any other way has encountered illegal dumping.
A lot of the time illegal dumpers are from out of town — city folk or other urban dwellers who figure they can just go out into the “bush” and dispose of all their unwanted debris and nobody will be the wiser.
It’s empty out there, right? Out of sight, out of mind.
Of course, it’s out of sight for them, but the land is not, in fact, empty, so it’s not out of sight for everyone.
Those of us who have chosen to live in more rural areas know all too well what it’s like to be the place they come to litter. It takes a great deal of arrogance to do something in someone else’s backyard that you’d be up in arms about if someone did it to you and your neighbourhood.
Much of the time folks believe they’re saving money by dumping their garbage in the woods. They’re not. Many times the things they discard can be recycled or donated or even sold. If not, the fees are usually very small.
It’s also pretty questionable whether they end up saving any money at all when you factor in the cost of gas etc. to move their haul.
The truth of the matter is that these polluters cost us money as a community. When they don’t pay whatever nominal fee it is to dispose of their trash and instead relocate the problem to our neck of the woods, we have to pay for clean up as well as disposal.
And we all pay in the destruction of our beautiful environment, one of our greatest assets.
It’s become such a problem in the Cowichan Valley Regional District that the CVRD is in the midst of a campaign to try to get it to stop, and have developed an educational video (https://www.cvrd.bc.ca/2220/Illegal-Dumping) on the subject.
So far the campaign has focused on the Hillcrest Road area, described by officials as a “hotspot” for illegal dumping. It is encouraging that they’ve reported significant success. We hope that success hasn’t come at the expense of another area instead.
We can all help with the effort to clean up our wilderness. We need to keep our eyes open and report polluters. There’s a 24-hour hotline: 1-877-952-7277 (#7277 from a cellphone).