Davis is dirty

[el-cubano-15.livejournal.com]

I live in Spring Hill, but go to Davis often and I'm a big fan of a numbers of businesses there:

Diva, Spike's, Mario's Salon, McKinnon's, JP Lick's, Dave's Fresh Pasta, Diesel, etc.

My problem is that every time I go there, particularly in the winter, the place is a dump. There is garbage all over the place especially in high foot traffic areas. Why doesn't the city make more an effort to keep Somerville's #1 destination clean?

Comments

[lcmayer.livejournal.com]

Maybe its time for another community clean up day, like we have in the Spring? Perhaps the Mayor's office could help organize it? I don't think we can just leave everything up to the city to do. Please don't take this as a criticism, I just find myself thinking more and more these days of Obama's call to arms - not to wait for government to help, but to find a way to jump start the community's needs ourselves. Maybe we could get Tuft's involved as well, at least to promote to their students to be more involved in the community? I know I'm thinking grand here, and you probably just needed to vent... :)

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i think that's a fine idea. i suck as an organizer, but i'd totally attend.

meanwhile? there's a lot of public trash bins in davis. as i walk around i habitually pick up recyclables, but if i extended this to picking up trash and putting it in the bins, it'd probably be a good thing. think i'm gonna try this; thought made public in case anyone else wants to try.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Another fine idea--thank you:)

[m00n.livejournal.com]

It'd be a big improvement if there were public recycling bins next to the trash barrels

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

completely agreed. i'm a resident so i have it pretty easy but your idea would be much easier for anyone walking through to implement.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I am too, but I definitely don't like carrying people's sticky Dunkin' Donuts cups all the way back to my apartment, especially if I happen to encounter said cup while on my way to the T or something. I tend to throw those things into the trash cans because I figure that it's better than leaving them on the street, but they really *should* be recycled.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

and here i didn't even know you could recycle dunkin donuts cups! (i'm one of those freaks who owns a travel mug :) thanks for the info.

[davelew.livejournal.com]

Of all the things not to recycle, not recycling styrofoam is pretty benign. If styrofoam ends up in a landfill, it doesn't pollute the groundwater (it's roughly as stable as chemically stable as concrete), and it isn't easily recycled. You can't make new styrofoam out of recycled styrofoam. Some park benches and plastic 2x4s are made of recycled styrofoam, so there are some uses for it, but it's debatable whether the effort of collecting, sorting, cleaning, and recycling polystyrene actually saves any energy.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Mainly what I had in mind is those ubiquitous clear plastic cups. In fact about the only recyclable I *haven't* seen lying around the square, besides things that are redeemable for bottle deposits, are tin cans. Everything else seems to be all over the damned place. I for one would be totally in favor of a city ordinance forcing CVS (et all) to charge people $0.05 to carry things out in one of those annoying little plastic bags.

[squonk.livejournal.com]

YES.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Not a great organize myself, but I love the idea.

[anomie666.livejournal.com]

If we wanted to do a davis_square community thing, it wouldn't be much to organize. Basically, making a post and saying what time to be there and what to bring.

[fefie.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of a community clean-up and not waiting around for the City to do something. All the city squares look like crap in the winter as the street-sweeping effort is replaced by snow-plowing.

Knowing how small the City's budget is, and especially the recent cutbacks in State aid (which Somerville heavily depends on) makes grass-roots effort all the more important. (I wish the merchants in Davis could be a bit more proactive about keeping the area clean too.)

[catling42.livejournal.com]

I think a community-organized cleanup would be a lovely idea. Could get it started through this comm.

[ron_newman]

If someone organizes this, I'll probably come. The main difference between a self-organized cleanup and a city-sponsored one is that we'd have to provide our own push-brooms, dustpans, and plastic bags, and we'd need to make some arrangement to have DPW pick up all of our collected trash when we're done.

[haptotrope.livejournal.com]

It could also be that the ice and snow has finally freed months of trash and cigarette butts in addition to the usual slobbery.

trash and cigarette butts and...

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

...and tons of dog crap. At least someone (I suppose over a few months it only takes one or two) apparently decided that snow drifts absolve them of the responsibility to clean up after their dog. Hey, guess what doesn't melt two months later!

who does the Spring clean up?

[lcmayer.livejournal.com]

does anyone know how/who organized the Spring cleanup, that I could reach out to? Not sure that I could take on organizing the whole thing, but I'm happy to prod around a bit...I'll check and see if Tufts has a Pubic Service Center like MIT does...

Found it...

[lcmayer.livejournal.com]

Found it: http://www.somervillema.gov/spotlight.cfm?id=57
They haven't posted this year's date yet. I've emailed the city to see 311 if there's a possibility of doing this quarterly instead of annually, and contacted Groundworks Somerville too.

[alphacygni]

Are the solar-powered trash compactors in Davis working? Both of the ones in Teele are broken right now, and it's starting to get nasty.

[ron_newman]

Please call 311 to report that.

[alphacygni]

I had (perhaps foolishly) assumed that the yellow caution tape that they're wrapped in was the official reaction.

I also assumed that they were suffering from "there isn't enough sunlight in New England in winter, duh" disease, and thus that it was probably an intractable problem. But I should drop a note to 311, you're right.

[syntheticnature.livejournal.com]

The one at the corner of Elm and Chester (outside Dunkin' Donuts) is broken and tied up with yellow "Caution" tape. Fortunately there's an old-style trash bin ten or twenty feet away.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

i hate those things.

hook into time bank too...

[lcmayer.livejournal.com]

you know what would be cool? hook into the Somerville chapter of Timebank.org, so that whomever volunteers for the clean up can also bank their volunteer hours in the time bank. There was an article in the Globe about the time bank today, for folks who don't know about it. I bet searching on boston.com tomorrow will bring it up.

Anyone have suggestions on WHEN to do this? Obviously a weekend, and weather dependent. Maybe it should be a "tweet up" instead, more spur of the moment for when we get good weather? What did those things used to be called, "mob events" or something..?

correct url

[lcmayer.livejournal.com]

Whoops, sorry about that! Its plural...

http://www.timebanks.org/

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it be nice if people passing through the square actually used one of the many trash barrels placed for just that purpose?
(Ah, the naivete of my youth occasionally surfaces).