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KAMLOOPS - Two Kamloops volunteers have banded together to create a new incentive to try and clean up streets and parks, and it could be an idea for other cities in the Southern Interior to explore.

Caroline King and Dennis Giesbrecht began a needle buyback program earlier this week, fully funded by the pair and small donations from citizens. For each needle someone turns in, they get five cents in return and King says so far it's been a success.

"In the first day we sold three buckets," she says. "Those buckets hold between 400 to 500 (sharps) each."

That means a total of between 1,200 and 1,500 needles brought in to be exchanged within an hour and a half on their first day, King says. Littered needles have been a touchy subject in Kamloops over the past three years, when the opioid crisis began taking the province by storm.

King says since their first day earlier this week, more than 5,000 needles have been brought back to them in exchange for a nickel a piece. She says she's overwhelmed with how users have cleaned up parks, streets and camps after having an incentive brought forward.

"I've been a volunteer on the North Shore for years, I've been at the location I am now since 2012, I have never seen it like this," King says. "I've never seen them leave needles for us... they're just so far down the rabbit hole, it's going to take incentivization, they're not going to pick it up, they don't have any pride because they don't have anything. They're trying to get from 'A' to 'B' to 'C' and the only thing that breaks into that hustle is a cash incentive... I don't even think they're leaving it on purpose, they just don't even see it."

King volunteers at St. Vincent's on Briar Avenue, where she helps with a breakfast and healthcare program. She asked the folks who come in for their program why they don't clean up their discarded needles after using.

"Most people just said they were sorry, like I couldn't get a specific answer," she says. "Other people said it was embarassing, you didn't want your friends and different people around you to know just how much you were using."

This is a temporary pilot project, King says, and believes that a permanent buyback program wouldn't be productive for the community. Instead, she wants to establish it for long enough that picking up needles becomes routine for users.

She adds that she's been approached by other communities, like Vernon, to learn more about the program and see if something similar could work in other cities across the Thompson-Okanagan.

"There’s going to be a lot of push back but the hope I have and that Dennis has is that we can just remind people we’re not enabling," she says. "This is not about enabling, this is not about fueling addiction, this is not another handout which is what I keep hearing, it's about a hand up, it's about cleaning up the streets and calming down the city a little bit... I hope that people could start to see (users) as human beings."

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