With the number of human and bear clashes on the rise, Enfield-based USA Waste & Recycling has seen brisk demand for its bear-resistant home trash receptacles. The 95-gallon rollout bins were introduced in May 2021. Today, more than 2,000 USA Waste customers pay $12-a-month to rent the bins. They are designed to be unlatched with […]
With the number of human and bear clashes on the rise, Enfield-based USA Waste & Recycling has seen brisk demand for its bear-resistant home trash receptacles.
The 95-gallon rollout bins were introduced in May 2021. Today, more than 2,000 USA Waste customers pay $12-a-month to rent the bins. They are designed to be unlatched with one human hand, and are not easily manipulated by paws.
The lock will also unlatch when held aloft and tipped upside down, which means they can be dumped by a garbage truck’s automatic arm.
Bear interactions are becoming so frequent that Connecticut lawmakers, last year, passed a bill expressly allowing people to kill a bear in defense of others or their pets, or to prevent a bear from entering an occupied home.
The law also allows the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to issue permits to cull bears who are destroying crops, wildlife or beehives when nonlethal options have failed. It also expressly forbids intentional feeding of bears, wild cats (like bobcats) and wild canines, including coyotes and foxes.
DEEP Commissioner Katie S. Dykes testified that the number of reported human and bear clashes more than doubled from about 1,000 in 2015, to well over 2,000 in 2022.
Bear home break-ins climbed from 10 in 2016, to more than 60 in 2022.
