Thunder Bay to look at alternative ways to deal with illegally-dumped large debris as council cuts funding

With Thunder Bay City Council voting to eliminate the city's large waste/debris pick-up program as part of a recent round of budget cuts, administration will be looking at alternative ways to address illegal dumping of large objects on city property.

Large debris — which the city defines as large items like furniture or appliances, or large amounts of garbage dumped in an area — is a relatively-common sight when travelling semi-rural areas of Thunder Bay.

For example, a piano was recently dumped on the side of Baffin Street on McKellar Island, near the entrance to the McKellar Island Bird Sanctuary.

Jason Sherband, Thunder Bay's manager of solid waste and recycling services, said currently, removal of such debris is complaint-based. Smaller items can be picked up by city staff, but removal of large items, like pianos, is contracted out.

However, council has voted to eliminate that program as of 2024; a report to council states the city will save $20,000 per year by not hiring contractors to pick up the debris.

"The way we sort of operated with the program is we would try to do as much in-house, with our staff, for smaller things, and obviously the program sort of supplemented that," Sherband said. "When we get into the larger items, we do a significant amount of work with that program in laneways."

"Sometimes, in certain parts of the community, lanes are littered with with garbage and debris, and so that program utilized clean up of of those areas," he said. "With the program being gone, we're certainly going to have to reevaluate next year how we would deal with this."

"We don't have a means to supplement what we were doing in-house, and so we're going to have to put our minds together and how we would deal with that, because as we sit here today, I don't know how we will."

Dan Cheal, owner of Junk Away — the company that the city contracts for large debris removal — said his crews didn't get called out that often.

"They run it in such a way where if they don't get a series of complaints about it, they're not proactive, they don't do anything about it," Cheal said. "I don't get called as as much as I should on that project."

However, Cheal said he doesn't think residents realize the full extent of the problem in Thunder Bay.

"It's not just in one area or one general area," he said. "It's all over town."

Cheal said his company has removed plenty of furniture, including couches and mattresses, and bags of garbage from various spots in the city.

"If you want to talk about tourism, put yourself in somebody's shoes wanting to come to Thunder Bay," he said. "Could you imagine coming here from southern Ontario or from the states, and you've got mattresses and dressers and garbage all over the road?