Trash: East Toledo is always excluded out of all other thoughts for the rest of the city of Toledo
The title is one of the comments made last night at the “Transition to Automated Refuse & Recycling Collection Meeting” as reported by FOX Toledo. I could debate it just being East Toledo, try being in the part of the City that’s South Toledo but is in District 3…
But the topic of trash is one that people take very seriously in our fair City, and the simple reality is there are some streets where the automated trash pick up will be “interesting” to say the least and there are a few where it will be almost impossible. There are also other questions that extend beyond District 3, such as streets like Collingwood, to use one example, in the winter the snow is plowed up creating huge mounds, where exactly are the trash cans expected to be placed? In typical Toledo fashion, we had a plan to buy the trash cans, we had a plan to buy the garbage trucks before we had a plan as to how this would all work that was explained to the residents of the City. Many other cities have successfully adopted automated trash pick up, even with snow, so this is not an impossible feat, despite our resistance to change…
Originally we were told that there could be a return to alley collection with the automated trucks, in some areas, like mine as an example, that would be the only real solution that would work. Over half of the homes here do not have driveways, if they have garages they are alley access only and the yards are small, getting trash picked up now is less than satisfactory with the fact that cars have to park on the street, there is no other place to park. Let’s use my family as an example, there is one parking space in front of our house, our neighbor who also doesn’t have a driveway has three cars he parks in the street. There’s been more than one occasion where the garbage trucks have not picked up our garbage because of how the neighbor has parked one of his cars. Logic dictates the automated service is not going to work well in these scenarios, which plays out on street after street in Toledo and while it’s been claimed the alleys are cleaner now that there is no trash collection done in alleys, the mere fact that these new trash cans have lids and are less “tippable” when it comes to raccoons, rats and other creatures would get the trucks off of the City streets and not return the alleys to the bag filled trash strewn days of the past.
That said, not all of the areas in the City have alleys…
There are additional meeting scheduled – On Monday, November 16, 2009 12:00 PM there will be a meeting at the Eleanor Kahle Senior Center, 1315 Hillcrest Ave. On Tuesday, November 17, 2009 7:00 PM there will be a meeting at Friendship Park Community Center, 2930 131st St. On Wednesday, November 18, 2009 1:30 PM there will be a meeting at Margaret L. Hunt Senior Center, 2121 Garden Lake Parkway on that same date at 6:30 PM there will be a meeting at University of Toledo Health Science Campus, 3000 Glendale Ave., Health Education Bldg., Room 100. On Thursday, November 19, 2009 6:00 PM there will be a meeting at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, 4030 Douglas Rd. If you have questions, I hope you attend at least one of these meetings.
I plan to attend and cover the meeting on Wednesday the 18th at 1:30 PM…
I also live in an area where most of the houses do not have driveways and people park in the street. I’m curious to find out how this is going to work.
November 10th, 2009 at 2:54 pmThis whole thing was the cart before the horse. First, we had to hurry up and buy the cans becuase the price of plastic was going up. Next we had to hurry up and order the trucks becuase the EPA standards were changing. Perhaps if we could have had a real discussion instead of rushing around to try and save a buck (which may or may not be true) we would actually have a plan.
Glad to see people in Toledo keep electing the same old people…to the same and different offices
November 10th, 2009 at 8:44 pmI haven’t heard anyone address the rules of using automated trash pickup. It seems unlikely that we will be allowed to continue with unlimited trash, as the robotic truck arms aren’t going to scoop up anything outside of the new cans. Will the city send additional trucks around to pick up all the other trash, or are we losing the unlimited aspect of our service?
November 10th, 2009 at 11:22 pmOther items will still be picked up that won’t fit into a can but you’ll have to call to arrange pick up from how it was explained previously. I’ll make sure that is answered as far as a definite when I go to Wednesday’s meeting.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:31 pmLisa Renee – The headline for this string probably could have been phrased better …
November 11th, 2009 at 10:43 am