Police are searching for someone responsible for illegally dumping electronic waste off a coastal property in Saint John, N.B.
Wires, circuit boards and plastic have been dumped on a hill between Crown Street and the tracks below.
Deputy mayor Shirley McAlary says it happens all too often in the area and tax payers are the ones paying for the cleanup.
“It's a very unfortunate situation because it costs the city a lot of money to clean garbage up regardless of what kind of garbage it is,” says McAlary
Jason Smith owns Bee Green Junk Removal and he says there are a lot of legal options to dispose of garbage across the province.
“I mean if they did their research and they looked into it, there are plenty of ways, I mean ourselves. There's plenty of ways of disposing things… you don't have to throw them on highways or people's yards,” Smith says.
“To know that it could be contaminating the soil that you grow in and your children play within. It’s really something that we know better than to do now,” says Graeme Stewart-Robertson from the Atlantic Coastal Action Program.
Stewart-Robertson says dumping electronics such as metal is not only harmful to the environment, but it’s detrimental to wildlife.
“The plastics involved in electronics as well take a very long time to degrade and in many cases break down into small bits."
New Brunswick has been practicing electronic recycling for over a year now and 65 depots are located across the province where people can drop off old electronics to be recycled properly.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Mary Cranston
