Since 2019, the Alberta government has been giving money to the City of Lethbridge every year to help collect and get rid of drug-related trash.
On Tuesday, city administration proposed to Lethbridge City Council to accept the $115,000 funding for 2024-2025.
A proposal that was approved by everyone, as it has been for the past five years.
“The effects of the drug crisis in Lethbridge have been around for a number of years,” said Andrew Malcolm, City of Lethbridge manager of community social development.
“With the closure of the ARCHES site, the provincial government shifted money that was previously allocated to ARCHES for needle collection in the community to the city to pick up,” he explained.
“This is something that we’ve hired the Clean Sweep Program (CSP) to do, so this is simply getting the money to continue the services.”
The funding will now be used for the Needle Debris Collection Program through CSP, which is managed and operated by the Downtown Lethbridge Business Revitalization Zone (BRZ).
According to executive director of the Downtown BRZ, Sarah Amies, this funding supports the larger clean sweep.
“Last year, we were able to pick up over 5,000 needles in the downtown. We picked up over 18,000 needles in the rest of the city, which is what this Alberta government contract allows us to do,” said Amies. “Then as well, we picked up about 3,600 pipes last year across the city as well, so without the program you can imagine just how much drug related debris there would be.”
The grant allows for the Needle Debris Collection Program to visit already identified areas with a lot of debris in the city, with teams doing cleanups in both the morning and afternoon, five days a week.
“We’re looking at places out by 13th St. North for example, there are some very active south side parks that are used a lot that we check regularly,” shared Amies. “The other thing is the hotspot zones don’t stay permanent necessarily, they change as the activity and the movement changes within the city.”
Amies adds the teams handling the drug-related debris have specially made sharps boxes, which are then passed off to a company collecting the bulk of their needles to properly dispose of them, several times a month.
People who come across any drug-related debris are encouraged to call 311 or contact the Needle Debris Hotline directly at 403-332-0722.
