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A scavenger’s act of tossing heavy items from a seaside garbage bin resulted in the death of a 46-year-old cyclist, Vancouver Police announced Thursday morning.

Just after 8:30 on Wednesday night, paramedics were called to a section of seawall near Science World by reports of an “unconscious cyclist.”

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Vancouver has long had a garbage problem. And now a cyclist has been killed by trash tossed on the seawall Back to video

From witness accounts, officers pieced together the “strange set of circumstances” that had left the man motionless on the pavement. A man had been “going through” a garbage can and heaving out heavy items onto the shared pedestrian and cycle pathway.

The passing cyclist was struck in the head by one of the objects, said police, causing him to plough face first into the pathway.

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The man was not wearing a helmet and suffered severe head trauma in the collision. He died in hospital at 4 a.m. Thursday.

“We’re looking at someone who’s binning,” said Const. Brian Montague, spokesman with the Vancouver Police.