Barely interested: Bear-resistant trash cans get lukewarm reception in Anchorage

If you lived in a neighborhood frequented by bears and could get your hands on a bear-resistant trash container at no extra cost, would you take it? Anchorage residents have demonstrated time and again that the answer may be no.

The latest example comes from the Government Hill neighborhood. This spring, Solid Waste Services, or SWS, ordered 100 bear-resistant roll carts and sent notices to Government Hill residents offering a free upgrade for 2016. By the end of summer, only 10 percent of about 374 eligible homeowners had opted to participate in the pilot program.

Most of the bear carts sat in the warehouse all summer.

Government Hill is the neighborhood where garbage attracted a black bear sow with four cubs during the summers of 2014 and 2015. Although some residents took precautions, most acted as if having five bears in the neighborhood wasn't worth doing anything about, except perhaps to complain.

During summer 2015, when the cubs were half-grown and had learned to associate humans with garbage, the state stepped in and moved the entire family — at a cost of around $10,000 — to the Kenai Peninsula to protect Government Hill residents from their collective civic ennui.

[Commentary: Humans not smarter than average bear when it comes to garbage]

About the time the bears were relocated, SWS took the unusual step of providing a community dumpster for Government Hill homeowners. The dumpster was also open for business all this summer. Appreciated by many, the free dumpster was a temporary solution meant to be replaced by the bear cans.

The sow and three cubs were shot in Hope about two months after their relocation, following a string of raids on garbage, chickens and campgrounds. A hunter shot the remaining cub in September.

From the bears' perspective, relocation was a failure. It also didn't solve the human-garbage problem.

When the governor ordered Fish and Game biologists to relocate the bears, the agency reminded residents that "trash problems left unresolved … will continue to draw bears." True enough. Other bears were seen in Government Hill this summer, including one whose dashcam debut racked up more than a million hits on the Anchorage Police Department's Facebook page. 

Not only Government Hill

But let's not pick on Government Hill. Based on a pilot study conducted in 2008 and 2009, other Anchorage neighborhoods are also reluctant to use bear-resistant trash containers, even when the service costs no more.

In 2008 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game partnered with the municipality of Anchorage, Alaska Waste and others to subsidize the cost of leasing bear-resistant carts to residents of northeast Muldoon and Stuckagain Heights. In 2009 the study added residents along Hiland Road in Eagle River.

The agencies practically begged homeowners to participate, and volunteers went door to door to drum up participants. By the end of summer, the highest participation rate was achieved by Stuckagain Heights, where 79 percent of residents switched to bear-resistant containers, according to Elizabeth Manning, an education specialist with Fish and Game who spearheaded the study. Only 54 percent of Hiland Road and 46 percent of Muldoon residents got on board. Government Hill's participation rate wasn't even close.

Garages can keep bears from getting into garbage if used to store trash until the morning of pickup. It's ironic that the neighborhoods that cite a paucity of garages as an excuse for bear problems — e.g., Muldoon and Government Hill — are the least willing to use bear-resistant trash containers.

These neighborhoods all lie on the city's interface with large natural areas and have plenty of bear incidents. The easiest way to keep bears out of neighborhoods is to avoid attracting them in the first place. Garbage is the single greatest attractant in Anchorage neighborhoods.

As anticipated, reports of bears in Stuckagain Heights dropped precipitously in 2008 when most residents used bear-resistant containers. But problems persisted in Muldoon because bears found plenty of other garbage containers and dumpsters to raid.

Why are people turning down a freebie that makes their neighborhood a safer place to live? This is not a new concept. After all, residents of other Alaska communities — such as Kenai, Soldotna and Seward — have the option of similar bear-resistant trash carts, according to Dennis Smith of Alaska Waste.

Manning recalled that "people were skeptical that it wouldn't end up costing them more somehow, and it took a lot of marketing on our behalf to get participation rates up."

Unanticipated confusion

Melinda Gant, president of Government Hill Community Council, believes the neighborhood's participation rate was remarkably high, considering residents' level of confusion. Gant said SWS made a presentation at their community council's April meeting that emphasized providing bear carts for homes in "hot spots" located along the bluff, next to local parks.

The "hot spots" were delineated on a SWS map that attempted to prioritize which homes should get first crack at the bear carts, which was confusing to some residents, according to Gant. Also, Gant said, many homeowners in the "hot spots" opted to use their garages instead of exchanging their roll cart for a bear cart.

Unfortunately, Fish and Game never saw the map, which SWS admits was an oversight.

"I would think that after (the sow) went all over Government Hill with her cubs, everyone in the community would have known that the whole place has the potential to be a hot spot," said Dave Battle, Fish and Game's Anchorage-area biologist.

Later this summer, when it became obvious that participation was low, SWS inserted a notice with everyone's monthly billing, encouraging greater participation. Gant also notified residents about the opportunity through social media, particularly Nextdoor, a website that operates as a social network and is sometimes used to share neighborhood bear sightings. Then she started hearing concerns that those signing up for the bear carts would be charged extra.

Contributing to the confusion was the requirement for customers to unlock their bear carts on collection day. Otherwise, a handout explained, the driver had to take additional time to unlock the cart, which would result in a "special pick-up fee."

No one's pretending that SWS's bear carts won't cost a little extra next summer. The bear-resistant carts were offered for free this year to get a handle on participation rates. It'll take that information to the Anchorage Assembly, looking for authorization to set a rate that will cover the cost of the carts.

Birgitta Kyttle, SWS's customer service supervisor, doesn't believe the rate will be higher than that set by Alaska Waste, which charges an extra $3 per month for bear-resistant carts.

State's largest bait bucket

The reluctance to accept bear-resistant trash containers, even if they cost a little extra, was unexpected. A 2010 survey conducted by Responsive Management found that 88 percent of Anchorage adults agreed that "most problems with bears can be prevented by taking a few simple precautions, such as using bear-proof garbage containers." Similarly, 71 percent of Anchorage residents indicated a willingness to pay extra for bear-proof trash containers. Only 20 percent were opposed to the idea (9 percent hadn't made up their minds).

The new "bear-tough carts" manufactured by Toter have a steel-reinforced rim, tough and flexible plastic and bear-resistant lock. The Toter website features a video of a brown bear attempting to bite, claw and pummel the contents of one of their carts — without luck.

[Check out these bear-tough carts]

The municipality of Anchorage has been slow to adopt methods to keep bears out of garbage. Alaska Waste, Anchorage's largest private trash-collecting company, has offered bear-resistant garbage containers for over a decade while SWS dragged its feet, insisting that there was no bear cart compatible with its new automated equipment.

Slightly more responsive, the municipal parks department has been replacing open trash barrels with bear-proof models in city parks for a decade. The barrels were replaced in Government Hill's parks in 2015.

After decades of pointing fingers at Fish and Game for the city's bear problems, municipal agencies are finally taking its recommendations seriously. However, if most Anchorage residents won't avail themselves of an opportunity to score a free bear-resistant garbage container, much less pay a nominal charge for one, it's likely that Anchorage will continue to be the state's biggest bait bucket.

Rick Sinnott is a former Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist. The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News. Contact him at rickjsinnott@gmail.com