City also expands its Animal Resistant Garbage Container Zone
GATLINBURG, Tenn.— The City of Gatlinburg is making provisions to begin an Animal Resistant Dumpster Program, which will allow for distribution of these containers over the course of the next 12 months. The Gatlinburg City Commission recently approved the adoption of the mandatory program for all customers who receive dumpster services from the Gatlinburg Sanitation Department.
“The City is concerned with finding solutions to help limit interactions between humans and bears and the creation of this animal resistant dumpster program is an effort to better secure the trash, which lures bears into highly populated areas seeking sources of food,” Gatlinburg City Manager Cindy Cameron Ogle said.
As part of the program, customers receiving dumpster collection services will be provided a City-owned Bearicuda, Inc. animal resistant dumpster. The City will own and maintain the dumpsters for its customers. Customers who currently use privately owned dumpsters can elect to allow the City to replace their containers with the City-owned receptacles at no cost to the customer. The distribution of dumpsters will be prioritized based on customers who are located in areas prone to bear activity and food-waste producing businesses, in addition to the order of forms received from customers.
The Gatlinburg Sanitation Department will cease collection of trash from the current privately owned dumpsters on December 31, 2024.
As part of Ordinance 2602, customers who receive commercial dumpster service will be assessed a monthly rate of $75 per dumpster. Customers who participated in the curbside pickup service will be assessed a $15 per month fee. These fees will go into effect on January 1, 2024.
Agreement forms are currently being sent to customers and these forms will need to be completed and returned in order to receive a dumpster. Signed agreement forms can be sent to the Gatlinburg Public Works Department at P.O. Box 5, Gatlinburg, TN 37738 or via email to dumpsters@gatlinburgtn.gov.
In addition to the dumpster program, the City Commission also recently approved the expansion of areas that are included in the Animal Resistant Garbage Device zone.
This expansion includes more properties in the zone, which was established by Ordinance 2188 in 1999. Properties included in these areas are required to have garbage storage containers that have a metal lid with latches, or be of a design approved by the City’s Public Works Director.
Areas that have been added to the zone required to use animal-resistant containers are all properties that are zoned in the Commercial Aesthetic (CA) Zone and all properties north of East Parkway, between its intersection at Traffic Light No. 3 and Roaring Fork Road.
“This zone has been expanded to include more properties that have, through collaboration between the City and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, been identified as areas where bears seek sources of food,” Ogle said. “Requiring more animal-resistant containers will help to reduce the number of human and bear encounters, keeping people and the animals safe.”
Properties that were included in the initial zone established in 2000, which required animal-resistant containers, were in the entire area within the city limits of Gatlinburg on the west side of the Foothills Parkway, the area north of the National Park Service boundary on either side of the western prong of the Little Pigeon River between Parkway and the Foothills Parkway boundary bounded on the north by LeConte Street and the Skyland Park and Winfield Heights subdivision, the entire corporate limits from Low Gap Road on the east and to the south of Highway 321 and Parkway.
In addition to properties within these areas, all restaurants within the Gatlinburg City limits are required to have animal-resistant containers. The requirement to have an animal-resistant container does not apply to containers that are located inside a structure such as a house, building, or other enclosed structure that does not allow entry by scavenging animals. For any questions about animal-resistant containers, contact the Gatlinburg Sanitation Department at 865-436-5959.
Property owners who are affected by this expansion of the animal-resistant container zone have been mailed information regarding this update. A copy of a map is available on the Black Bear Management Program page on the City’s website at GatlinburgTN.gov.
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