People use forest near Prince Albert as dumping ground

Some parts of the forest right near Prince Albert, Sask., are not so pristine thanks to people illegally dumping their garbage.

The Ministry of Environment found 80 illegal garbagedumping sites in the immediate area around thecity.

The Keep Prince Albert and Area Beautiful Committee will be working on Saturday and Sunday to clean up as many of those sites as they can. Twenty-nine siteshave already been cleaned this spring.

"It's been surprising to me just the level of it and what's been happening in the forested areas," Charlene Tebbutt, co-chair of the committee,told CBC Saskatchewan's Blue Sky. "It's a significant problem here and it's a problem we'd like to help curb."

She saidpeople throw out household garbage, furniture, and tires in the forest.

Tebbutt saidstudents from Saskatchewan Polytechnic have helped map out the areas to make it easier for volunteers and workers to clean.

Much of what they find in the forest can actually be recycled, Tebbuttsaid. As volunteers clean, they organize the mess into piles of plastic, metal, and tires that are then taken away for recycling.

The group is hoping to raise awareness about how people can recycle many of the items, instead of dumping them in the forest.

"We're hoping more people will realize the value of properly disposing of their garbage and this won't be such a significant problem."