East Van Garbage Watch 2013: Commercial SkyTrain station
East Vancouver smells like shit.
Between West Coast Reduction's rendering plant on North Commercial, the vomit and urine streaking the sidewalks and alleyways after special events, and the epic piles of garbage, it's hard to argue that the east side of town smells like anything other than rancid death.
To wit, I present the 2013 East Van Garbage Watch (patent pending): a semi-regular series of photos of disgustingness.
Exhibit A: An overflowing trash can outside the Commercial SkyTrain station on Sunday evening. The pic can't even begin to capture the acrid, offensive smell.
Folks, this isn't an uncommon occurance. I don't know how often that stinking bin gets emptied; it is, in a word, infrequently.
Is this truly the mark of a town that prides itself upon being The Greenest City (We're So Great Rah Rah Freaking Rah)?
Do you know what happens in downtown Vancouver after a night of fireworks? After the crowds disperse, a veritable army of streetsweepers—escorted by a phalanx of police cars—roars up Robson Street, washing away the detritus of the evening.
You know what happens on Commercial Drive?
No, seriously, does anyone know? Because I've never seen a legion of sanitation vehicles cleaning up anything east of Ontario Street.
I won't pretend I have perfect information about the priorities at City Hall or the maintence schedules for particular neighbourhoods. What I do know is that I trundled off to Jericho Beach for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival on July 21—an event that draws over 30,000 people to the area over the weekend—and I did not witness a single shameful overflowing garbage can in my travels.
But piles of trash are always there to greet me as soon as I step foot back in East Van.
Got an East Van garbage photo you want to share? Tweet it to me at @charenton_ with the photo's location, date it was taken, and any other observations you may have.
Comments
11 Comments
Jack
Jul 22, 2013 at 11:43am
Keep this series going. The only way Mayor Moonbeam will get the message is through public shaming like this.
If you want to get some incredible photos, just head to China Creek Park (the one just south of Broadway, not 2 blocks north. Sadly in East Van even our parks have to share names...). The garbage cans by the kids playground are unbelievable at times. It resembles a landfill.
The ongoing deterioration of our streets needs to be documented. Tree trimming has been cut back, grass cutting has been cut back, emptying the garbages have been cut back. But lots of money for bike lanes!
Miranda Nelson
Jul 22, 2013 at 11:55am
Awesome, thank you so much for the tip! I will be doing some garbage hunting tonight for sure, not that it's particularly hard to hunt down the trash piles!
Jacob
Jul 22, 2013 at 11:59am
This happens downtown too. They get emptied regularly, but people generate a lot of trash.
Heats
Jul 22, 2013 at 2:25pm
Put this on Twitter. Mayor is on there often and may see it.
Colin Bell
Jul 22, 2013 at 3:58pm
Looks gross, our company is developing a sensor so that cities (such as Vancouver) will know when the garbage cans are getting full and be able to prevent overflow. They will also waste less time driving around to the cans that are not full.
You can vote for us to get $100k at the link below, help us help cities like Vancouver in reducing the overflow of garbage.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-grow...
who's to blame?
Jul 22, 2013 at 4:33pm
people could stop being pigs?
joe donn
Jul 22, 2013 at 10:26pm
Hi,
I work in the sanitation department at COV, I can personally tell you liter cans are picked up on a m-f daily basis, you may think otherwise but actually this is the truth. On weekends of coarse there is no pickup as there are no city staff working anywhere but for events like downtown friday & sat on granvile or folk fest or fireworks; that and hastings area for needle collections on night shifts t-m. What special events happen on commercial dr? Meth party? Drunk hipsters stumbling around? Doesn't seem to be any events that I can think worthy of pulling guys out of needed spots.
The actual reality here is people on the east side of vancouver are disgusting, eastside dwellers frequently dump their house hold garbage in city or park bins and are too cheep or lazy to dispose of their garbage in a respectful/legal manner. Way less people on the west side of town do this I assure you. And you complain about the smell of urine.... well that should say something about who lives in the area, I don't see people on west side pissing on the streets anywhere as as frequently as I do on east side.
You people need to wake up as smell the crap you are cooking, you have no idea the work that goes into cleaning up after all the whiny lazy slobs that live in vancouver!
Elizabeth
Jul 22, 2013 at 10:50pm
Yes, please continue to post these. I hope more people will see how disgusting it is that we as a society lazily discard so much single use plastic.
John P
Jul 22, 2013 at 11:55pm
Most of folk fest was cleaned up by volunteers for the festival FYI
Alan Layton
Jul 23, 2013 at 8:47am
joe don - is right, unfortunately, when it comes to the people in East Van (where I live). It's no secret that low income often means eating more processed foods, in wrappers, and also the people tend to be less clean or concerned about the look of the city. One of the reasons that low-income housing is often in such a sad state of repair is that the inhabitants don't take good care of their homes. This is a fact and was documented during the huge amount of low income housing that was built in large cities many decades ago, that eventually turned in to slums. The amount of money needed to keep the places clean was much higher than apartments inhabited by the middle class. Once budgets were slashed and less maintenance and cleaning was done, the buildings turned into ghettos.