Colorado mountain town's trash changes cause big stink with residents, businesses

CBS News

4 hours ago

After some changes in trash accessibility in the town of Silverton, some local restaurant owners are fighting to have things changed back to how they used to be. It's that, or at least find a middle ground as trash responsibilities change and littering ramps up.
CBS
Silverton has removed its "camp dumper," which was outside of town on the way into the wilderness for campers to use for free. The town hoped to keep the national forest clean and provide a convenient spot for refuse.
A social media post from the town garnered many outcries both from locals as well as folks who visit the beautiful mountain area. The post asserted that less trash cans would equal less trash. This led to people thinking cans were going to be removed from the busiest part of the tourist-fueled downtown. The receptacles are also now outfitted with serious bearproofing.
"Despite popular rumors, the town has the same number of convenience cans that we've always had around town," Mayor Dayna Kranker told CBS Colorado. "We've placed them maybe in some different areas, put a few out by the library up on a popular walking trail."
The town was unable to provide the previous location for the trash cans, and the new spots for the cans. but the town told CBS Colorado it has moved to the street corners, as well as other high use areas for the public to utilize.
"We're trying something new this year, and people can give us feedback," Kranker said. "By having them sort of at every block, it might encourage folks to walk a little bit more to take the beverage that they just purchased to the next store and shop at that store."
That's frustrating for Molly Noel-Barela, the owner of Golden Block Brewery, who said her block used to have four cans on it. Now two adorn the corners of the block, and no trash can sits out front her brewery anymore.
Noel-Barela said people are starting to litter right in front of her location, as well as entering her business to ask to dispose of things that include dirty diapers in her restaurant. This is happening because people are either not seeing the other trash cans, or could not figure out how to open them thanks to the new bearproofing.
"I'm all for having bearproof trash cans," Noel-Barela said. "But they've closed up the four sides that used to be able to insert trash from, from all four directions, and they have created a bear proof mechanism that has no handle, so people cannot figure out how to open it."
"You have to stick your fingers in there, pull it back, and the door is so heavy that I'm afraid there's going to be a lawsuit with missing digits." Noel-Barela said she's already heard of two people getting their fingers pinched in the heavy hinging door of the trash cans.
All of this, she said, leads to trash where it shouldn't be, which makes their beautiful town that relies on tourism to survive less appealing.
"Keeping it clean is huge," Noel-Barela said. "It's pride in your community. It's pride in your business."
Mayor Kranker said she's proud of the community's efforts to find a solution to what she said was a tragic problem made painfully clear last year. That was when a bear was shot with a beanbag round in an effort to haze it away from trash overflowing in a dumpster, which killed the bear and orphaned two cubs. She said removing the "camp dumpster," which was constantly overflowing with garbage helps in their mission to stop something like that from ever happening again. The dumpster was also costing the town $18,000 a season, which was eating into the town's $3,000,000 budget.
"That's a decent expense for a solution that wasn't working because the trash wasn't staying in the dumpster," Mayor Kranker said.
While she admits people haven't given up trying to throw trash where the dumpster used to be (volunteers were able to collect 37 bags of garbage from the area recently) she believes the free, overfilled dumpster was not only a danger to bears, but was being abused.
"It was getting filled with furniture and larger items," Kranker said. "It was getting used on days that the transfer station was an open by residential trash and so it was really overflowing."
Mayor Kranker said she is open to new ideas from residents and guests to find a solution and would encourage folks to meet up with her to discuss the issues they have in good faith to find a solution that fits everyone.
Noel-Barela believes there needs to be some other solution to the problem aside from just removing the dumpster and leaving only the dumpster at the gas station in town as an option for campers looking to dispose of their waste responsibly. In the meantime, she said her own dumpster has started to fill more, as guests look for new places to put their trash.
"The only other thing I can think of is that us as business owners really do have to start taking responsibility for all of this," Noel- Barela said. "And then, if so, I want it deduction\\\\\ on my bills because I don't mind putting a trash can here (out front of my brewery) that we have to take in every night, in order to keep the trash from being dumped on the street."