Each home will receive two wheeled carts--one for trash and one forCount me among those who are counting down the days until packing a car full of recycables, trudging through the muddy Armory parking lot, and battling an overflowing recycling bullet are no longer required to improve Westbrook's relatively paltry recycling rate.
recycling--which will be dumped into a single truck equipped with an automated
arm that is operated by the driver to pick up the bins. Such programs are
already in place in Scarborough, Saco and South Portland. Casella signed on to
providing recycling in Westbrook in September as part of a 20-year agreement
between the city and the waste management company, which plans to build a
construction and demolition processing facility, as well as a recycling drop-off
station for residents and businesses, off County Road.
- John C.L. Morgan
Related: A Closer Look at the Casella-Westbrook Agreement (September 16, 2008)
7 comments:
It would be really nice if this new plan resulted in less trash on the streets of Westbrook, too.
Liz- I agree, the other thing that really bothers me is the fact they don't say anything to property owners if they have large trash items (say an old sofa) if front the building for weeks if not months. In Portland the property owner would be notified that day and fined the next if it was still there. There is no reason to leave large trash items on the side walk and right now with the bed bug problem it is a sure way to spread that problem around, it just makes the city look dumpy.
John-
I agree it has been an embarrassment for me with my friends, family and co-workers that live in other S. Maine towns and cities that Westbrook was so behind the times on this. Because we all know that it was just a small percentage of residents that were participating in the current recycling plan. I manage 715 apartments in Portland and South Portland and when it first started in those cities everyone wasn't as cooperative or excited but it is like any change people come to appreciate it (we actually have it at most of our locations even if the city doesn’t pick up trash, we have private recycle company pick it up) – example the seat belt law, when that first came out I hated it now I don’t feel safe driving down the street without it on.
The large trash is awful, and I'm surprised Westbrook does not have some ordinance in place to have people remove those things.
Can you imagine how much nicer Westbrook would look if every homeowner, renter and business just stepped out their front door and picked up the trash in front of their own property? Wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes, and it would make an amazing difference.
Liz- I agree and the worst offender is some smokers. Cigarette butts everwhere!!
As for the trash this is the worst time of the year because of all the trash that gets frozen in the snow all winter and it is now months of trash blowing all over the place.
MOST business owners and property owners and some tenants keep their property picked up its always just a few bad seeds.
Lynn- Cigarette butts do seem to be the most ubiquitous form of litter. Interestingly, if you type in "cigarette butt" Maine in Yahoo!, the first five or so results deal with an assortment of proposals to institute a redemption program for butts similar to the one we have for cans and bottles. Anyway, the reason I saw the results is because I was looking up the article about the so-called "Litterbug Vigilante," the man in the Augusta area who in February 2009 impersonated a state trooper to pull over a woman he spotted flicking her spent cigarette out her car window. His vigilance is *almost* as admirable as his creepiness.
John- that would be great! A deposit on cigarette butts, if they made it sizable enough a lot of people would do it and if not then we would have butt collectors!!
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