First day of new trash program goes smoothly
City trash crews begin their new schedule this week, and today, it seemed most people got the message.
Trash collection has been basically the same for four decades -- twice a week. But from now on collection will be once a week, Tuesday through Friday, depending on where you live. Those who have had Monday pickup mostly followed the rules and didn't put out the trash.
There were some who did in the four neighborhoods I visited this morning. But those people may be the one who put out their bags no matter what day it is, in cans or just bags -- nevermind the rats they feed.
City officials insist that picking up trash only once a week will help. They say crews that had been picking up recyclables one week and cleaning alleys the next. But now those crews will be on full-time alley duty. So if you call 311 and complain about a big mess near your house, hopefully, the turn around time for cleanup will be much faster.
In addition to collecting trash once a week, crews will also pickup recycling once a week, up from twice a month. Recycling has been on the upswing since the city started single stream crub-side, and city officials hope this will lead to even more recycling and less trash in the landfills.
Certainly, the changes won't fix everything. And it may, as some residents fear, lead to some more trouble spots. We'll see over time.
In the meantime, city officials say they are "not focused on" ticketing residents who put out their trash cans the morning of pickup without lids, another concern of those who fear their lids will disappear or be broken by trash crews. While they still want everyone to use cans with lids to cut down on rats, they are really focused on those who put out bags of trash the night or day before trash pickup.
You can read today's story here. And I'll report back tomorrow how Day 1 of actual trash pickup goes. I'll be out with the trash crews at 7 a.m.!
For more information on trash and recycling and a map of the new pickup days, go to baltimorecity.gov.
Baltimore Sun photo of 1800 block of E. Fairmount St./Jed Kirschbaum
Comments
Well I live in Pigtown and I can attest that folks here are unaware of the new schedule, including myself. I had heard that the new schedule was to take place (from a neighbor) but was unclear on the details. Evidently, so were my immediate neighbors as there was trash out on Monday as usual (including my own. So I'm sitting outside on my deck and googled the new schedule. As I was doing this, I heard my next door neighbor asking someone in his household when the trash is picked up now. I don't know how the word was spread, but in my opinion, Baltimore City did a poor job of announcing the new schedule. And counter with "it was all over the local news" or "it's on www.baltimorecity.gov's site" because that's evidently not sufficient. I'd also like to add that in the 1.5 years living here, we've had two trash cans stolen (on separate occasions no less) and we now have to chain our cans to our property and zip tie the lids to the cans. Not to mention random trash bags that magically appear with our garbage. I can't wait until we get a citation for that. Personally, the trash situation is ridiculous.
Posted by: John | July 13, 2009 8:31 PM
The Trash Apocalypse has begun. It should work and is a good plan, but implemented way too quickly. Most residents don't listen, have their own schedule and/or don't care about others. I advise a long vacation outside of the city this summer and watch out for dem' rats hon!
Posted by: Brian | July 14, 2009 10:25 AM
Ok first of all this whole 1 day a week trash thing is the stupidest idea that Baltimore City could have done. How are you making the city better by doing this? it is only going to get worse. It's bad enough that people don't care about making the city better before, now they are making matters worse. More rodents, bugs, and every other blessed thing roaming around. The city says that they have officials working on plans to distribute 64-gallon trash cans to all city homes, ummm HELLO, you should have distributed the trash cans BEFORE you went down to a 1 day a week trash collection. Now not only do we have to smell trash 6 days a week, we have to wait for the city to make up their stupid minds whether or not they want to give us trash and WHEN we get them. So it's ok for us to smell trash 6 days a week, but we get to have unlimited recycling? what is that all about? JUST PLAIN DUMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They need to wake up and smell the coffee and better the city before the city doesn't have any residents in it anymore.
Posted by: Dina | July 30, 2009 5:44 PM