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Penticton council green lights sharps disposal inquiry

City staff will help an ad-hoc committee refine a list of locations for sharps disposal bins
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Ian Gerbrandt with OneSky Community Resources delivers his pitch to Penticton city council for an ad-hoc committee’s sharps disposal strategy, as community partners with Pathways Addictions Resource Centre and City of Penticton’s bylaw department watch. Dustin Godfrey/Western News

Penticton city council has come out in support of a group representing non-profits and various government organizations seeking to set up sharps disposal bins in locations throughout the city.

An ad-hoc committee involving groups like OneSky Community Resources, Pathways Addictions Resource Centre, along wi the Downtown Penticton Association, the City of Penticton and the Interior Health Authority presented their sharps disposal strategy to council Tuesday afternoon.

That group is seeking to implement up to 31 bins in 21 locations, including indoor bins in 10 locations and outdoor bins in 10 locations.

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Two indoor bins would be implemented per location in washrooms throughout the city, including public facilities in parks and other locations like Okanagan College and various non-profit spaces.

Outdoor locations include the public library, public parks and various affordable housing and shelter locations.

“We’re really happy with this kind of achievement. There was only one place where you could really safely dispose of this kind of biomedical waste, and that was at the Penticton Health Centre,” said Ian Gerbrandt with OneSky. “A lot of people were actually throwing it in the landfill and dumps, and that’s not safe for the staff that do that work.”

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Interior Health would be expanding its “stericycle” contract to perform pickup from the bins around the community.

Gerbrandt told council there is importance in tracking the usage of those bins compared with how many clean needles are going out, but added it would come with some challenges.

“It’s going to be impossible to count every discarded needle, but there’s a bit of a tracking system for the people with every box when they empty them, to keep track of what’s working, what’s not, if it’s the right location,” Gerbrandt said, adding the city’s bylaw department has tracked, to some degree, where they are finding needles.

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“Their service calls and their reports kind of show the hot spots. So we expect, as other communities have been able to show, that where the box goes in, they start to see a decline in the hot spots.”

The committee was not seeking financial support — their report to council noted they had already sprung the $6,000 for the boxes — but was seeking in-kind support from staff.

“A second thing we learned from other communities is those boxes are only good if somebody’s actually taking care of them and emptying them,” Gerbrandt said. “So another part of our strategy was taking responsibility for doing that.”

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OneSky would be the “point people” for care of the drop boxes, but Gerbrandt said they would be getting help from some of the other partners involved.

The initiative received effectively no resistance from council. Coun. Max Picton said he was happy to see the boxes going in, but asked how effective they are.

“The one study that was done at McGill University … was actually a random control study, where they put boxes here and didn’t do boxes there. And they found that, not surprisingly, where there was a drop box, you could reduce those needles within 200 metres of it,” Gerbrandt said.

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“We’ll get creative on educating the peers. … The people that are monitoring the boxes and emptying them are also educating their peers on why this is important.”

Coun. Judy Sentes said some facilities have set up sharps bins, but the facilities have then seen some vandalism. Gerbrandt noted challenges with sharps bins, including vandalism, often happen after those bins are not emptied or cared for.

“It doesn’t make it right, but I know they’ve expressed those kinds of things,” Gerbrandt said. “So I think if somebody’s showing that these are cared for and they’re going to be monitored and watched, and parallel to that is an education effort with the community and those peers, then we can tackle those issues.”

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Dustin Godfrey | Reporter
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