Taste the ick with every lick!
Longing for a scoop of Peppermint Pavement? Perhaps a double-scoop waffle cone with Sour Sewer and Stinky Green Cart? While our new Public Works Ice Cream flavours may not tempt the tongue, they’re sure to turn heads (and noses!)
Learn about public works (and how our crews keep Nanaimo running smoothly) with our new public works-inspired ice cream flavours; taste temptations so grotesque, they're unreal! (seriously, they aren't real...)
Our sensational flavour lineup begins with everyone's new favourite pie-topper:
Flavour #1: Vanilla Vacuum Truck! It’s not the worst tasting ice cream, but wow, it sucks! The City’s flusher/hydrovac truck is super powerful and can be used to suck up water and materials into its 7500 litre tank! But it isn’t just for excavation – it works in reverse too. Crews can fill it up at a fire hydrant and use the water to blast away blockages that may be clogging up sewer and storm pipe lines. Once, the City even used the truck’s vacuum to remove a football-sized hornets nest!
Flavour #2: Green Light Lime! If it tastes like ‘go’, you’ll be happy to know that all of Nanaimo’s traffic lights are programmed for efficiency. Staff study traffic flows at each intersection, considering time of day, speed, safety, direction, pedestrian and cyclist use, and volume of traffic. Many of our intersections are equipped with detectors that monitor traffic and adapt traffic light timing to help keep everyone moving. And notice how there is a public-art-wrapped cabinet at each of Nanaimo’s lighted intersections? These house the electronics that control the traffic lights!
Flavour #3: Yellow Line Banana! It’s icky, sticky, and will leave you feeling sicky! Inspired by the painted lines on our streets, this flavour may seem simple, but it's all about traffic safety. Our crew uses a special paint truck equipped with a guide laser, helping the driver to follow the existing yellow and white street lines as the paint goes down. Did you know? That shine from those lines under a car’s headlights isn’t just a natural sheen. The City adds fine glass beads to the paint for added reflective safety!
Disclaimer: Public Works ice cream flavours are not real and are not available. And if they were, yuck! This message brought to you by the City of Nanaimo’s Sanitary Sewer team.
Come back and read on as this blog grows throughout May & June 2026!
