Recently the Harbour Authority of Cortes Island (HACI) decided to stop offering garbage disposal services on our docks. This news sparked a flurry of discussion on Cortes Island Facebook groups. Some people were upset at the HACI decision, while others supported it. Most people agreed that there is a “garbage problem” on our docks, but opinions varied about who is to blame and what should be done.
On Saturday, May 21st I visited the Gorge Harbour Government Dock to interview Billie Fleming, who has worked for HACI as a garbage collector. Billie is now offering her own garbage pickup service at the Gorge Harbour public dock from 10:30 AM to 4:00 PM, Wednesday through Saturday.
This article is an abridged version of the content of our interview. For the full content with many interesting details, please listen to the 26-minute podcast (this news segment aired at 3 PM on Monday, May 23 on CKTZ 89.5 FM).
CC: Billie, is it true that HACI has stopped all garbage collection from Cortes Island public docks?
BF: That is true. And it’s in line with the rest of the Gulf islands. We’re one of the last islands that had garbage service at all of our docks. They [HACI] might have continued doing the garbage service, but I was the one providing that service; and I was not willing to continue doing it, because I needed to be paid a lot more than they were able to pay me with the funds from the honour box system, which is how people pay for their garbage.
CC: Let’s back up just a little bit here and get some context. How long have you been involved in dockside garbage pickup on Cortes? And how has that worked in the past?
BF: I’ve been doing this for, this would have been my fifth year. So I did it for four years with Riel. who had been doing it for many years before that. And Riel, he almost did this service for nothing; and the Harbour Authority was very, very grateful to have had him doing this. And when it got passed on to me — I don’t have three pensions, I’m a younger person who has just gotten married and bought property. And I need a lot more to sustain myself, whereas Riel was doing it for — I’m not even going to say how much — it was a ridiculously low amount, and he was fine doing that. But when it came time for me to take over. I started incrementally giving them a higher invoice. And then this last year I gave them an invoice which reflects what I would need to continue doing it, and it’s not feasible for them. not with the amount of money that they’re getting from the honour system.
Also, as a business, they have to pay the tipping fee — which is the money per bag that goes into the dumpster at the transfer station here on Cortes. All commercial businesses have to pay that fee. And so that’s quite a substantial amount… but what was being paid towards that garbage was very minimal. And it’s actually not even in the Harbour Authority’s mandate, to provide garbage service. They are meant to provide service for commercial boats, especially like shellfish businesses. They aren’t funded to provide garbage disposal for liveaboards or transient boaters.
In the past it had worked. But now there’s such an influx of people living here, who need the garbage service at the docks that they are living at, or living somewhere on the water around Cortes… And there’s a major influx of tourists.
CC: It’s fairly obvious that we have a lot more liveaboards in our harbours now — I think many of them are refugees from an inhuman housing market. Old boats are cheap and it’s a way to not be homeless, you know, to have a home of some kind. It’s one of the few places left where you can stay and the police won’t move you on — on the water. So, I had been wondering whether maybe HACI should just add a liveaboard fee on the docks. So they could pay for the garbage service.
BF: I think that is absolutely contributing to the amount of people that are here and making garbage, but I don’t necessarily think it’s the reason why the service wasn’t being paid for. Because there are many liveaboards who I know don’t have any real means of making money or anything like that. And they still, at least when I’ve seen them, still try and make the effort to pay and to sort things properly.
And then on the other hand, I know of a few specific people who live on this island — on land — and just because they were too lazy to go to the recycle centre they used to go to the dock and put their garbage there, and not pay.
Also there are people who live off-island like towards the Redondas. I don’t know if they’re coming from Refuge Cove, but somewhere in there, like from the Squirrel Cove, outlying Desolation Sound area — some people would come in the middle of the night with boatloads of garbage. And just dump it. Refuge Cove has a garbage service as well, from Garbage Dave, and it’s a barge service. And that’s where I got the model for this; because he sits there and collects garbage, for a fee, by weight. But if somebody there, or in that area, did not want to pay for that… they could so easily rip over to the Squirrel Cove dock and just dump it. So it’s a system that’s just been really taken advantage of.
And I want to make it clear that I am not putting the Harbor Authority down in any way. Anytime I did need anything, they were very quick to try and help me, and they really wanted this to work; and it wasn’t just the little amount of money that people were leaving (or none at all).
It was also the fact that people were becoming less and less careful and considerate of what they were putting in the garbage.
CC: Oh, dear. It’s been a while, but as I recall, the signage asked people to bag up their garbage. Put the bags in the bin. No oily wastes. That kind of thing. So what were you finding?
BF: It varied dock to dock. I would say the best dock was Cortes Bay. But on the flip side there was the Gorge government dock. And I’ve been getting flack from some of the Island Sea Farm people that I may have implicated them in this, but I’m pretty sure what I said from the beginning was that there was a lot of oyster lease garbage or some type of shellfish garbage. And nothing was bagged for the most part.
And near the end, it became a place for people to dump anything they didn’t want. There was beds here. There was whole chunks of boat, and nobody wanted to take responsibility for it. I don’t think it’s any one person’s fault, but the thing is, when you see a pile of garbage people think that it’s okay. And so it just got compounded and very much worse quickly.
CC: So people would look in the bin and they see that it’s just a heap in there, and they think, “Oh, it’s a dumpster.”
BF: Yes and this was two garbage bins. And then outside of it, at one point it was basically two full parking spaces of garbage. .
CC: So that will take you a lot longer to deal with. I mean, it’s not just like “Huck the bags into the back of the truck.” Now it’s more like “Scrape it up with a shovel.” Or wade in there with rubber gloves…
BF: Yes. Or a machine. And for the last bit of this, I refused to do it for the bigger things. They would have to pay a reasonable amount of money. Because I would have to hire people to help lift things and everything; and we did end up getting help lifting a lot of that stuff away. But the things that I found in the dumpsters are not things that normal garbage collectors have to deal with.
CC: Well I can see how this was not really working. So what’s your plan now? I mean, we’re sitting here at the Gorge Harbour government dock, and you’ve got your truck here, and you’re here on certain days of the week. And people can come to you and bring you stuff. And they pay you on the spot?
BF: That’s the idea. I pitched this to the Harbour Authority as a means of helping deal with the boater garbage.
CC: So how long a trial are you going to give it?
BF: Until June 15th. It’s only the Gorge Government Dock. Because this is the only place that I think is accessible to most people — but the most important thing is that I have an agreement with the Gorge Marina that they will send over their boater garbage too. And that’s probably the only thing that’s going to make this financially viable.
There’s no way that me doing what I’m doing today — just getting it from people coming to me — would be financially worth it. Anyway I’m open Wednesday to Saturday. So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from ten-thirty to four-thirty. I may reduce that to two days a week. We’ll see how it goes next week.
CC: Well, I guess we should be wrapping this up. Is there any message that you’d like to convey to listeners or readers? Some important idea that you’d like to leave them with?
BF: I would just tell this to anybody: garbage is your responsibility. If you don’t want it to be your responsibility, then buy less shit.
It can’t be this single use system… like this year, especially, the environmental crisis is coming to a head. Things are happening. And garbage hopefully is going to be looked at differently — because we can’t continue what we’re doing.
[Note: As part of her personal mission to shrink the waste stream, Billie offers free pickup of compost and deposit containers. A mariner who cleans and sorts their household garbage properly can have it taken away for a very small fee. Listen to the podcast for details!]
[Featured image: Billie’s truck at Gorge Harbour Dock, photo by De Clarke]