Support binners in Vernon!

The City of Vernon is making life even harder for binners and people who are homeless by banning the use of shopping carts in public spaces. Show your support for low-income people in Vernon and across the province by taking a moment to read and sign our short open letter here.

Together we can grow our communities to be inclusive, sustainable places -- let’s help Vernon see that!

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To Mayor Mund & Vernon City Council,

Last week was a tough week to be a binner in British Columbia.

First, a Vancouver woman died after she was trapped in a clothing donation bin. Then, a story out of Victoria of two security guards using excessive force on a man taking bottles away from an outdoor mall, and now Vernon is implementing a city-wide ban on shopping carts in an effort to ‘reign-in homelessness’.

As many of us know, binners and people experiencing homelessness use carts and other makeshift contraptions as transportation for their bottles and cans, and personal belongings.

Carts are fundamental to a binners’ work – banning them is akin to banning an executive’s briefcase, or a courier’s bicycle.

We cannot move forward in reducing poverty in our communities by eliminating access to the tools that allow binners and people who are homeless to work and survive with dignity. This ban will only serve to further disadvantage the people that are already living on the margin. Instead of further marginalizing people who use carts, we should be working on innovative solutions that reclaim what shopping carts represent.

Around the world, work is underway to destigmatize and reimagine carts:

• Pimp My Carroça is a project based in Brazil bringing attention to binners work on the street by brightly painting carts and inviting bypassers to see them as the tools that they are.
• A recent story out of Kelowna shared about a UBC Okanagan students that have engineered a cart to suit the complex needs of people who are homeless.
• Finally, in Vancouver, Binners’ Project’s own Universal Cart Pilot is set to launch next year, offering binners a cart-sharing system with purpose-built carts to help make binning work efficient.

We urge the City of Vernon to reconsider their decision, and instead take a more inclusive approach. Supporting binners strengthens the local economy, grows waste diversion, and contributes to a society where people are accepted.

If you would like to learn more about how this work has unfolded in Vancouver and elsewhere, we encourage you to reach out to us.

Sincerely,
​
Anna Godefroy & Davin Boutang, Binners’ Project
on behalf of the undersigned binners and their supporters