Locals Dispute Curbside Pickup
WARSAW — When it comes to recent changes to Warsaw’s trash pickup program, some residents are saying, “kick it to the curb.”
Willard Brandt, a local landlord, is displeased with the new system that moved alleyway pickup in the city’s historic district to the curbside, something he says the area was never designed to handle.
“I’ve lived in Warsaw for 49 years,” he said. “It’s been a pretty city. We’ve enjoyed living here. And now we have as I drive down the road on the main street in town that has alleys behind it on both sides, I see trash cans. For 49 years, I never saw a trash can and all of the sudden I see trash cans all over. And they don’t just show up, they stay there. They may be there two days, they may be there several days and we’d just like to have the trash cans someplace where the residents can handle them and the city can handle them. It becomes an equal trade. That’s why we have taxes.”
Concerns range from elderly and disabled residents being unable to haul their full cans to the side of the street to large households producing more trash than the containers can handle. Some residents, he said, pile their extra garbage around the cans in plastic bags, only to have them left behind on trash day.
Curb appeal is another concern that came up. The cans, Brandt said, are left by the curbside following pickup. In many locations throughout town, residents are able to wheel them up a driveway and into their garages. In other areas, residents wheel them across their front yards and keep them next to their houses all week. If something falls out of a can, he said, it stays on the ground.
“It also doesn’t make us more rodent-free, by leaving trash and garbage out,” he said.
A Facebook group, Warsaw Community, recently formed, giving residents a venue to express their feelings towards the program. A petition has also circulated in both electronic and hard copy form. In one neighborhood, 78 percent of the residents signed the petition, while in another 87 percent signed. A spokesperson of both the group and the petition spoke with Ink Free News about the curbside pickup.
“We lost service,” he said. “They went from taking anything to taking only what can fit in the can.”
He also expressed concern about wintertime pickup, when residents without front driveways need to pull their trash totes through the snow. On a plowed street, snow piled up on the curbside creates an additional concern, as it leaves no room for trash cans.
“People don’t shovel their yard,” he said.
As a solution to the problem of people leaving their bins on the curbside after pickup, the city sent out a notice it will begin tagging cans that are not put away. However, neither Brandt nor his colleague believe this will solve the issue.