A Squamish man who set up an impromptu used vehicle battery drop-off at the local landfill on the weekend insists he "wasn't doing anything wrong," and that competition among battery recyclers during Free Dump Day would encourage more people to do the right thing.
But Mayor Greg Gardner begs to differ. On Tuesday (May 3), he defended the actions of District of Squamish (DOS) and Carney's Waste Systems officials who asked Alan Shillito to leave because, he said, such activity "is not appropriate when in that domain."
"We would generally not want an employee of a contractor of ours taking something of value that's been directed to the District of Squamish," Gardner said. "Once they're [batteries] in possession of and in the control of the District of Squamish, they are our responsibility."
Shillito, an employee of the municipal contractor that runs the weigh scale at the landfill, said he went to Free Dump Day on Sunday (May 1) on his day off to help out as a volunteer. While there is a used battery drop-off location at the site, "it's not labelled very well and people might drive right by," he said.
As an alternative drop-off spot, Shillito said he set up his own truck about 50 feet (15 metres) up the road with a large sign that read, "Batteries-Car, Truck, Marine, RV"
Within minutes people were stopping to drop off their batteries, Shillito said. To prove his point about people not knowing where the "official" drop-off location was, Shillito said he personally went and dug 14 batteries out of the actual landfill piles.
Shillito said not long after he set up shop, though, "honchos" from the district and Carney's approached him and began asking him to shut it.
"After I hashed it out with three of them, one of them finally said, 'I like you' and said 'thanks.' I said, 'I'm going to go move my truck' and they were yelling at me as I was down the way that, 'You can't go set up down the road.' I think maybe traffic was a concern or something," Shillito said.
Shillito, though, did set up down the road. There, in addition to those who left their batteries with him, he encountered a police officer who "said I wasn't doing anything wrong."
In all, Shillito said he collected 128 batteries, which he planned to take to a battery recycler in the Lower Mainland. He said the company pays him 23 cents per pound.
"I checked to see what I'm allowed and I'm allowed to collect up to 2,000 pounds of batteries," he said.
When the three separate officials asked him to leave, "I could have just stood my ground because I wasn't doing anything wrong," Shillito said. "It would have been a real tough one if I hadn't just given in and walked away."
Shillito said he wouldn't be surprised if he's fired from his job as a result of the incident, but added, "Why can't there be two or more people recycling batteries? He's [Owen Carney of Carney's Waste Systems] just doing it because it's a service that's offered to the community. I'm doing it for the same reason but also to make a little money at it. What difference does it make?"
Gardner said it does make a difference.
"The starting point is that batteries are not difficult to recycle because they have an established market value, and there's a profit motive there," he said, adding that the collection of used batteries for recycling is part of the district's arrangement with Carney's.
He said a number of regulations also apply to someone setting up a temporary collection site outside the landfill to make a profit.
"First of all, you have to have a business licence and second of all you have to have some sort of tenure on a piece of land. And there might be zoning issues as well. So like any sort of business, you have to meet all applicable regulations," Gardner said.
He added, "We've been using that [current] site for recycling batteries for some time so it would surprise me that people wouldn't know where the batteries are supposed to go."
