Fire department busy picking up needles

It has been a busy time recently for the North Battleford fire department picking up needles around the city.

Fire Chief Trevor Brice provided the fire report to the city Monday with preliminary numbers for March sharps pickups. He said there have been 32 calls this month alone and a total of 4,172 sharps picked up. 

While the number prompted Mayor Ryan Bater to say it was extraordinarily high, Brice noted it wasn’t.

Last year, there was one incident of 10,000 sharps picked up. There were other pickups where the amount of needles found was upwards over 2,000.

Councillor Kelly Hawtin noted there had been high numbers for sharps for the past three or four years. She asked about those significant amounts and where theye were happening. Brice responded the two largest sharps pickups this year and last year were from rental properties.

In terms of what they can do, Brice said his deputies have been going out to schools to tell kids what to do when they see sharps. They have also worked with the hospital on where sharps boxes could be located. But Brice also noted the people responsible for the high sharps numbers are usually people who don’t use the sharps