Yellowknife (May 22/06) - Ten urine-filled jugs provided a bit of a surprise for a Yellowknife woman collecting bottles around Old Town on May 13.

"I collect bottles to fundraise and I saw about 10 in the ditch near the bus stop at McAvoy rocks with liquid in them," said the woman, who did not want to be named.

Thinking they were discarded fuel, she opened one, only to discover it was urine.

"I didn't collect those ones," she said.

Urine should be disposed of at Yellowknife's sewage lagoon, located five kilometres outside of town.

Greg Kehoe, Yellowknife's manager of public works, said the city picks up honeybags from a dozen places in town on Monday mornings.

"We're looking at phasing the system out over time," said Kehoe of the free pick-up service.

However, city council has requested his department to review the system, with an eye towards making it user-pay. "It's in the job jar for sometime in 2006," he said.

On the other side of the fence, the honeybag dropoff is turning into a defacto garbage dump, as items ranging from appliances, computer equipment and animal remains are being left there.

"We would like to discourage people from dumping other things at the pit," said Kehoe.

"Some people are dumping inappropriate items. We've found oil drums and different waste that has to be disposed of properly."

Kehoe said this type of behaviour is concerning the city, regulators, and is an added burden on the city's budget.

"It's caused us to have to put more effort into digging more cells (pits), which costs taxpayers more," he said. "It's meant to be used for honey bags and dog doo-doo, but sometimes you'll get out there and it's just a mess."

As tipping fees at the solid waste facility changed Jan. 1 for items not previously charged for depositing in the dump, Kehoe says he can only speculate if that's resulted in illegal dumping at the sewage lagoon.

"I'm not sure if (illegal dumping) has increased or decreased with the new tipping fees. That may have had some impact," he said. "We've asked the municipal enforcement division to patrol the site more often, as we do have complaints about it from time to time."

Manager of municipal enforcement Doug Gillard said patrols at the lagoon are ongoing, but it's difficult to nab the culprits.

"It's an area that we patrol randomly. If we catch somebody, we'll deal with it, but you have to be at the right place at the right time," he said.

Under municipal bylaws , fines for littering are $200 for the first offence, $350 for the second and $500 for the third and any subsequent infractions.

Gillard says using the honeybucket dump site for anything other than honeybags would be a violation covered under the littering bylaw, as would dumping jugs of urine anywhere but the honeybagdropoff.