Kamloops needle buyback program preparing for winter
KAMLOOPS —With discarded needles still littering Kamloops streets, those at the forefront of a grassroots needle buyback program are gearing up for the winter ahead.
Caroline King and Dennis Giesbrecht started the program in June, and since then, have collected nearly 11,000 needles at five cents a piece.
In terms of how much their initiative has cost, King says a couple of thousand dollars has been spent so far.
“The majority of that money was on things like Gatorade, socks, backpacks, things to get people over to us so we could introduce ourselves,” she explains. “You can’t just holler out ‘Hey do you have any sharps to sell?’, but in actual sharps, it was $500.”