Donation Bin Fees

Friday, 19 September 2014 at 06:59

Woodstock City Council votes in favour of charging charities to license their donation bins.

WOODSTOCK- Charitable organizations looking to leave their donation bins around the city will now have to get them licensed.

Woodstock City Council voted in favour of the proposal which will charge charities 25 dollars per bin every year to have them licensed.

The decision to implement licensing fees comes on the heels of complaints from area residents. Woodstock Deputy Clerk Amy Humphries says there have been a number of complaints, "The by-law enforcement team was getting complaints from residents and business owners, about things like; items being left behind that were not appropriate for that type of bin, items flowing out of the bin and in the surrounding areas.."

After an investigation into the complaints, the by-law office came up with a decision. "We discovered a lot of other municipalities are licensing donation bins to rectify a lot of the situations I mentioned, to make sure that the bins are particularly maintained properly and not unsightly." There was even one instance of a bin being left on someone's property without their permission. Prior to the licensing decision, organizations had the freedom to drop them anywhere including businesses parking lots free of charge. At issue were items that would be dropped off that were not permissable- the business would be on the hook for clean-up or maintance.

While the charities will now begin being charged for their bins to be licensed, Woodstock Councillor Bill Bes thought the issue should have been approached from a different perspective. "I wonder how effective this by-law is going to be because if I was a bin owner the onus is going to be put on me to constantly monitor these bins to make sure that I am not going to be fined by the by-law officer when it's not the owner of the bins thats committing these offences, it's the people who are dropping off stuff that they shouldn't be...sometimes I think we shouldn't be punishing the wrong people," said Bes. Bes was the lone opposed vote to the by-law changes.