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Friday, February 10, 2012
Change is in the wind for your lawn piles
by Kathleen Haley, published on November 6, 2009 at 8:19 PM
Storyline: City Services
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The practice of dumping green waste on the street may become a thing of the past.
The City Council will discuss a proposal Tuesday to ask voters if they want to place their piles of leaves in bins instead of in the street. The people of Sacramento banned bins in 1977.
“On September 27, 1977, city of Sacramento voters passed Measure A, an initiative ordinance that prohibited the city from requiring containerized collection of yard and garden refuse (green waste),” according to a Utilities Department report that will be presented to the City Council Nov. 10.
The department is asking the City Council if it wants to sponsor an initiative to overturn the ban on the bins. A city ordinance establishing a green-waste pickup system that uses containers can be enacted only if voters reverse the 1977 law, the report states.
While the city is forbidden from making rules for bin pickup, many citizens over the past five years have chosen to use bins. “To date, over 70,000 customers receive containerized green waste collection on this basis and another 45,000 customers will be offered the service by the end of FY 2009 / 10,” the report states.
The city is supporting mandatory container use. Bin use is cheaper, the Utilities Department states. “One of the major benefits of containerized green waste collection is that it is less expensive than loose-in-the-street collection, due to the fact that loose-in-the-street collection requires the operation of two vehicles, the ‘claw’ and the collection vehicle,” according to the report.
“Containerized green-waste program participants are presently charged $9.37 per month for a single-family home, which is 24 percent cheaper than the rate to those with loose-in-the-street collection service.”
The Utilities Department also says the container system is more environmentally friendly than street pickup. While two vehicles are used to pick up green waste from the street, only one would be needed if bins were used, the department states. A bin system also would enable the city to compost clean green waste, according to the report.
Read the report from the Utilities Department here.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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We have made the point that the central city has different needs because of the density of residences, businesses, absentee landlords and the year round leaf, seed blossoms, pods, litter, falling branches from city trees.
Further the accumulation in the gutters of the discarded sandwiches and beverages (alcoholic, coffee and soft drinks), styrofoam containers of partially eaten fast food which attracts rats, cockroaches and other vermin now will increase because they will remain in the gutters until the sweeper comes around once a month. All of this will make our streets less clean and less healthy. The proposal was poorly thought out and needs to be in two parts--one for suburbs and one for central city..
.. But i am spolied and i love putting my green waste in the streets... id be willing to pay the city a little more ( a little more) to pick it up and pick it up properly..
good morning dale ..
You do know that it's illegal to block a bike lane, right? Just as it's illegal to block a lane of vehicular traffic. Little known fact (among motorists), a bicycle is considered a vehicle so any laws pertaining to vehicles pertain to bicycles. Sadly, SPD doesn't enforce that law but, since they don't, mind if I block your lane of vehicular traffic with a pile of waste?
I do know this, however, when I first moved here, there was unlimited free parking for commuters on our central city streets. Many took their bikes out of their trunks and biked from midtown downtown. Because they parked all day, streets were often not cleaned along the gutters because cars were parked too close to the curb. Residents had to pull their garbage cans (no recycling then) into the street beyond the cars parked. Further, all our lettered streets were one way (except for two or three) and traffic sped down them.
Green waste was shoveled up and swept by city workers who then dumped it in trucks. It could have been pressure from he unions so employees would not lose jobs or or it could been the more containers, then more traffic dangers and the last thing the city manager and council wanted to do in those years was slow traffic. These were "throw away neighborhoods fit only for low income residents and social services that they claimed such folks needed.
So the idea to containerize then must have come from the suburbs, which is how containerization should be divided now if they want to repeal that ordinance.
Once a month sweeping does not require weekly parking restrictions!
Given the high density and small lots in the central and ring neighborhoods...where exactly do you propose all those bins get stored? Have you seen the 4plexes on 40x80 lots with 8-90 gallon bins and no parking and now you want to add 4 more...ya sure!
Interesting that containers were not issued to commercial and apartments...which means the residential cuostmers have been paying for their services all along. Is the city going to bill them??
poorly run city department?? thoughts on this ?) so . i love the ability to put my waste on the streets, However if they cant afford to pick it up efficiently then we better put it in a container ( bigger more efficient space savers for apartments) and remove all the dam parking restrictions and the sweeping fees ...hmmm does that mean the utility dept will still need more money if we eliminate the fees,parking revenue and the service or can we raise the fee a small amount and regain the service? as an elected official i woudl like to offer the choice we raise the fees ( and possibly the rates)a small anmount and keep the services and improve them or we raise the rates to comphensate for the fees and parking revenues disappearing and lose the service.? what did i miss..as i am sure i missed something..:-) cheers & yes i know ,i desperately need spell check here
Thanks fifthgen for pointing out the loss in revenue to the parking department that Edison Hicks and no one on council thought of.
Then you will see the reason for the 1977 law, and why we will regret moving to bins if the City bureaucrats who live in the suburbs keep pushing bins on us.
East sac has some neighborhoods with bins and 50% of their streets are filled with leaf piles AND bins. Parking is impossible. The City needs to earn the $13 it's charging us monthly and PICK UP THE LEAVES! They have quit doing that to try & force bins on us.... just plain negligent.
BTW folks -feel free to read my post on this topic too
http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/17158/Dear_City_keep_your_bin_or_cut_my_tree
(I got more thumbs up... just saying! people don't seem to want bins) :-D
I don't know where you walk but about two blocks in any direction of a convenience store, bar, club, food take out place, coffee house, drug store, restaurant, etc. you will find what I listed plus small liquor bottles, candy wrappers, empty cigaret boxes or wrappers, boxes, gum and candy wrappers, small piles of cigaret butts from car ashtrays. There are quite of few of those places in the central city in case you didn't notice those either.Wherever people buy something and walk, there will be litter, because people discard the wrappings and often part of the content.
Remember what you see now is only a one week collection because the claw picks them up, so there is less on a weekly basis than what I listed . BUT multiply that times four weeks and imagine the accumulation and a sweeper trying to sweep that junk into its hopper.
I agree that when you get near the J street area, the trash pollution problem becomes a big issue everywhere, and it appears someone rakes it into the leaf stack, thankfully.I do not believe that getting rid of leaf piles will get rid of the pollution, because it is everywhere, sidewalks, gutters, parkways.I do not think the trash pollution will go away with the addition of new bins, do you?
I see my neighbors doing the raking and trimming, and I am pretty positive that there is not trash being hidden under the stacks on our streets, in this part of Midtown, and that's why I am asking where you see the piles of trash. Just asking.
You might want to take a walk on H just west of the RR tracks and just south of H on 19th. An inventory on H in one pile only = one Marlborough cigaret box, one red and white grocery bag, one plastic takeout food container--black bottom with clear plastic top--a pizza flyer, a white sheet of paper, an approximate 8 feet long branch on the park strip next to the pile, a white soft foam packing filler partially covered with leaves, white crumpled up paper towel or kleenex. That has accumulated since last Monday when the claw picked up the leaves.
On 19th Street were two small boards with nails in them, a stick and some broken up unidentifiable material. I didn't poke through that pile either. That accumulated since Thursday pick up.
Then look at the No 8 to 12 parking signs being gone because there is no need to restrict parking just for garbage and recycling cans. They can be pushed just beyond the parked cars as they are in most parts of the city. Also consider fithgen comments above.
You are right that where there is no food or alcohol retail near, the leaf piles are much cleaner on a weekly basis but even then the leaf and other tree droppings other than the heavy leaf season, blow around from street to gutters as well as traffic blowing the leaves all around. In early Sept., (long before the leaf dropping season) to make a point with Hicks, Solid Waste Supt., I did not clean my gutter for a month (in between the once a month sweeping) and asked him to come out and see the accumulation of leaves, sticks, litter and other debris that I mentioned before. It was nearly curb high and blocked the storm drain.
There is lots of tossed trash in the streets, and most of it is not in the leaf piles. The bulk of the street trash we saw was connected to drinking, plastic party cups, beer boxes, etc., and weirdly, paper plates are popular to toss into the street. In some areas, it appears that the trash spilled into the street is from the trash cans that are right up against the sidewalk, almost as if someone went through the garbage cans. Again,nearly all these are at apartment type places. We saw many pieces of opened personal mail scattered.
I do not believe the leaf piles and the pollution are the same topic, and there will still be lots of pollution, without the leaf piles. And lots more graffiti, will be on the new cans. The cans that are out there are tagged heavily. We certainily have a litter issue in many strips of town.
You are right that the polluting trash and litter will occur regardless of the leaf piles which is why we need the weekly claw in off season weather.
The poor darlings will have to take their shit home with them!
so, not all bad news!
and I agree - two huge bins is bad enough - any more is just crazy.