If you are an avid hiker, biker or outdoors person you know all too well the familiar site of illegal dumping. In fact if you head out on almost any backroad Canada and look down a driveway or pull off you will find the evidence of illegal dumping. Folks have been known to find all manner of strange items from old furniture, appliances and event the odd item such as a stuffed deer head. Keystone is a big fan of using technology to make recycling and waste management more efficient and accessible.
Many people who find an illegal dump site wish they could do something about it. Aside from actually cleaning up the site themselves they at least would like to alert someone that has the power and resources to do something about it. With smartphones and GPS you can now tag your favourite pizza joint, check in at your local pub and in some places tag a soggy mattress in an alley. The State of Washington has started to plot illegal dump sites using Google maps to help both track the dump sites and to look for trends in illegal dumping. Check out this link for a view of what is currently sitting in the woods in Washington State.
Closer to home in Vancouver you can check out service called SeeClickFix which lets citizens tag problems that they see during their everyday travels in a city. See illegal dumping? A pothole that is swallowing SmartCars? Maybe some graffiti that could use some attention? You can report this using the SeeClickFix site and then point city officials in the right direction. Vancouver should really head in this direction to allow citizens to report in real time as they see problems. The current approach is too cumbersome (see the problem, remember where you are, go to website, fill in a nice long form here and…..oh you lost interest?…)
If you have a hard to recycle item you can try posting it on ecycler.ca, it’s a quick and easy way to find someone to remove and recycle your no longer wanted tv, fridge or furniture. Or you can borrow Uncle Bob’s truck and dump it in Stanley Park, we’ll let you make the call……
