Trash Pick-up

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Does anyone have a link or knowledge about Somerville's new garbage laws regarding things having to be in a trash barrel with a lid? I'm doing spring cleaning, and already I have much more than will fit in the house's barrels. Without a car I can't take it to a dump, and some of it is perishable stuff that will stink if left til the following week...

Thanks for any guidance.

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, no tickets have been issued for violations of the trash ordinances so far.
Similarly, the trash company seems to still pick up all items, whether or not they're in barrels.

But in any case, you do not need to have a lid on the barrel when the trash is at the curb. So it's perfectly legitimate to pile the bags on top of the barrels for trash collection.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Trash left outside prior to collection time must be in containers with tight-fitting lids, but once it's legal to bring it to the curb (something like dusk the night before? I'm not sure), it no longer needs to be lidded or even barreled.

In fact, you shouldn't leave the lids on when the trash it brought to the curb, because they're just likely to get lost, blown away, accidentally thrown out, or suffer some other horrible fate.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

The earliest you can put it out is 4pm the day before, and you're supposed to have put everything away by 7pm on the day of collection, I think.

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

The details are here (http://www.ci.somerville.ma.us/spotlight.cfm?id=7).

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

And if you have more questions, you should call the city's 311 number. They're actually pretty helpful.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

It still needs to be in barrels.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I must have misunderstood the regs. I got them from the source: http://crm.4gov.com/SOMERVILLEMA/FILEXFER/issue_12612/Ord2006Trash.pdf
But they aren't particularly clear anywhere I can find on the proper way to handle the very occasional situation of having more trash than barrels, beyond that it will be treated as bulk trash.

I *was* told earlier this year by someone on 311 that additional bags could go out on the curb on trash day, but that does actually seem to be the case.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Nope, the regs define bulk trash as specific items, not an abundance of trash.

(For that matter the regs also set a limit on the volume of trash barrels -- 32 gallons. No one seems to be taking that into account, though.)

That being said, there's the letter of the law, and then there's the purpose of the law.

The primary reason for these regulations is to reduce the amount of rodent food available. The city is highly unlikely to ticket every non-compliant household every week. What seems more likely to me is that buildings that repeatedly ignore the ordinance will be noticed and fined.

So the right thing to do is to make a good faith effort when you have an unusually large quantity of trash. Put all of the food trash in barrels. Keep some of the clean garbage inside until trash day, etc. In my opinion if you make a good faith effort to follow the regs you should have nothing to worry about.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Nope, the regs define bulk trash as specific items, not an abundance of trash.

If you look at page 4 of the regs, section (h)(3), it notes that nonregulation barrels or any other unapproved containers will be treated as bulk items and disposed of as such. Since they define an approved container, that seems to mean that trash in trash bags outside a proper barrel would be considered bulk items.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Which contradicts (h)(1) on the same page ("shall cause the refuse to be placed in authorized refuse receptacles."), but I see your point.

Sorry for bickering about it.

I'm usually better at close reading than this, but every time I've tackled these regs they've sent me in circles.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't think we were bickering -- just both being kind of amused while navigating the labyrinth of government regulations.

Perhaps, taking a cue from them, we too should have begun with two and a half pages defining any word we might use that could be confusing, such as "leaves" (b)(11). :)

Speaking of which, how do I throw away an old trash can?

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

I put my old noncompliant, lidless trash can out on trash day with a note saying "Please take this bin too it is trash" but they didn't take it. Maybe the note blew off or something, but I don't think so.

Is there some special trash-can-throwing-away process?

[kalliejenn2.livejournal.com]

no, they've given out tickets. our landlord got one already.

Re: Speaking of which, how do I throw away an old trash can?

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I've heard stories about this, though it was in an office. The solution the office people found was to break the bin into pieces and put it inside another one, cause no number/type of notes made any difference.

They're definitely ticketing.

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

I had the pleasure of spending a morning at Somerville District Court with a bunch of fellow citizens all fighting trash tickets. It was awesome. I was hoping for a real judge because I felt the need to vent, but instead the whole herd of us violators were seated around a table in the library, whereupon the court clerk explained that they really didn't know how to deal with these tickets, and a representative from the city fumbled through his paperwork in an attempt to justify the tickets (he was so unprepared the court clerk pretty much told him to stop talking). There was much complaining and then all the first-timers had their tickets dismissed en masse. And I was warned I wouldn't be so lucky next time.

Incidentally, my ticket was for "wood blocking sidewalk." Apparently, during the same week my wife and I spent at the Brigham having a baby, someone leaned a board against my wall. To say it was blocking the sidewalk would be like saying the city has a smart ticketing policy. And to presume it was my board instead of, say, coming from the construction site next door was genius.

But as much as the stupid ticket bothered me, what bothers me more is the tremendous amount of trash that blows around my street. Maybe we all need this tough love to get the city clean.