Recycle junk mail from super mailboxes, Vaughan, or face fines

YorkRegion.com
Aug. 20, 2014
Tim Kelly

The city is warning that tossing your junk mail on the ground instead of stashing your trash in your blue box could cost you cold hard cash.

To avoid provincial fines ranging from $255 to $5,000, residents are urged to take junk mail from their mailbox home to their blue box.

To that end, Vaughan is launching a $26,000 Our Vaughan, Keep It Clean anti-littering and bylaw enforcement campaign after residents complained about a buildup of litter at community mailbox locations.

Problem is, residents themselves are the ones dumping the junk mail on the ground and neither Canada Post nor the city is willing to pay to clean it up.

Therefore, all residents are encouraged to recycle any mail they don’t want to their own blue boxes, where it will be picked up on the normal recycling schedule.

City staff will be out canvassing various neighbourhoods this week to pass out information on its waste collection and recycling program and to emphasize the that under City of Vaughan bylaw 3-2004, fines of $255 to $5,000 can be levied on those who litter on private or public property.

Earlier this year, council chopped from the budget a $147,000 pilot project to clean up litter around so-called “super mailboxes”.

City staff had proposed placing specially designed recycling bins at 150 super mailboxes where litter, primarily from junk mail, has been a source of ongoing complaints.

But many residents, and a majority of councillors, panned the proposed pilot project as an expensive solution to the “bad behaviour” of a small number of people.

Council instead decided to spend $26,000 on the program that is being launched this week.

For more information on waste collection and recycling, visit vaughan.ca/waste. To learn more about Our Vaughan, Keep It Clean campaign, visit vaughan.ca/antilittering.