Our Daily Garbage

On Thursday, August 30th, I noticed a DPW crew of 3 emptying the public trash cans on Warren Street.  They then repeated the task on Friday.  And on Saturday.  Yes, on Sunday, too.  And Monday (Labor Day), and on the following day.  Then I stopped paying attention to the cans.  DPW empties all the cans on Warren and the side streets, and as needed, in the parks. Usually, it is a crew of 3 (including the driver of the truck), but sometimes 2 recently.

One day last week, I asked the driver how long it takes to empty all the cans.  "Does it take about two or three hours?"  "Yeah," he responded, "depends on if we do the parks and how many guys I have."

Monday, Warren Street

On Monday, emptying one of the 6 (7?)
trash cans in the boat launch parking lot

A woman came in front of the Common Council last night to pitch her consulting firm called Public Works Partners.  The city wants to hire them to update our comprehensive plan and make us more sustainable and friendly.  The tab?  $208,000, a third of which is covered by a grant.  If the city does hire this firm, I hope that by spending $140,000 of taxpayer money we can be shown a way for DPW to stop spending so much time and money and spewing so much toxic diesel exhaust into the air just to empty our public trash cans practically every day.  Talk about unsustainable.

24 hours later, back on Warren Street

While they are at it, maybe Public Works Partners can do something Robert Perry is not able or willing to do.  That is, figuring out a way to turn off all of the lights in the City Hall Municipal Parking Lot during the daytime.  Talk about unsustainable and absurd.