Vancouver's Scavengers

Before Vancouver, B.C. had "Garbage Collectors"- or as we said when I was a kid: "Garbage Men" - they had "Scavangers".

Private companies used to remove trash for people, apparently not only being paid, but also scavenging through materials for sellable garbage as the name suggests. The 1896 Vancouver City Directory  has a list of 4 scavenger companies in Vancouver - also three in Victoria and one in New West:

These scavengers would dump the garbage they could not salvage. False Creek was used for such dumping events, and there are likely many dump areas underneath a lot of beautiful apartment buildings and parks in the city. But one of those dumping areas seems to have been accepted as the consolidated dump at the south end of the Cambie Street Bridge.

In 1907 an incinerator (a Heenan Froude) was installed at 120 Barnard St. (Union St.). The city was getting more involved in garbage collection around this time and bought out the largest private scavenging company in the city. But the official city scavenging system was “incomplete” and private scavengers remained in business (The Province August 14, 1908 p.16).  Obviously, the scavengers sold what they could, but would have hauled the excess waste to a dump. A practice that the city would not allow with their own scavenger crew (Vancouver Daily World October 18, 1916:16). 

 

Figure 12. Vancouver City Scavenging Department 120 Union Street 1913 (CVA AM54-S4-: LP 19). 

Map showing location of the above photograph (taken from the left side of the property) at 120 Union St. The road in the middle with the street car lines is Main. (CVA Map 342b.07)