Trash pickup / 311 / holiday

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Followup to the previous post about trash pickup being delayed due to today's holiday. In case you missed the comments on the previous post, several people who live on streets where trash is usually picked up on Mondays posted to say that their trash WAS picked up today, even though supposedly the pickups are delayed this week.

I sent an email about this to the 311 system (311Updates(at)ci.somerville.ma.us) because the 311 phone system isn't operational today. Just got a response saying that due to "vendor error" the trash was picked up in some places today, and it has been straightened out, and pickups will resume tomorrow on the delayed schedule. I.e., those of you who are on Monday streets can put your trash out tomorrow and it will be picked up. And pickups will indeed be delayed one day for the rest of us, as per the holiday schedule.

Comments

Trash

[bostonartist.livejournal.com]

This happens all the time on Holidays in my area (Union SQ). When ever there is a holiday, the recycling truck picks up on the normal day (wrong) and the regular trash gets picked up the next day, when it should according to the holiday rules. Trash pick up is a pet peeve of mine in Somerville because the I think the company that does the work (Russell) is really careless and haphazard. If they drop trash while doing their rounds they rarely bother to pick it up ADDING to Somervill's trash woes.

Re: Trash

[ad-lib.livejournal.com]

my front yard is like the trash magnet from trash day. i hate it so much. its neverending.

Re: Trash

[dani-namaste.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that too. At least on my current street they're nice enough to let me pass when I'm stuck behind them - in my old neighborhood (Brickbottom) I'd get stuck behind them for 20 minutes on my commute every week.

[ron_newman]

This screw-up is worth mentioning to both Somerville weekly papers.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Does that mean you're going to mention it to them, or are you suggesting that I do so?

If bostonartist's comment above is accurate, then maybe this isn't so much an individual screw-up as an ongoing problem. I'm not sure what recourse the city has, though, if it's the trash collecting company that's at fault. Fire them and hire another one?

[ron_newman]

Suggesting it to you, since you're the one who reported it here. (My trash day is Tuesday, so it hasn't affected me yet.)

[unsi-sempai.livejournal.com]

Thanks for passing this along!

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

Holiday?

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Keep reading back on your friends-list, you'll get there eventually. *pats you on the head*

[ron_newman]

Or just click on the "garbage" tag.

I still don't understand why it is either necessary or desirable to delay trash pickup one day because of such alleged holidays.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Well, it makes sense in the case of "real" holidays, wherein the trash collectors deserve to have the day off just like everyone else. But that doesn't apply to holidays like this one, where most of us don't have the day off anyway.

For that matter, I don't really understand the purpose of "municipal" holidays overall. Seems like all it accomplishes is to give a day off to a small subset of the population (city employees) and cause trash-related confusion.

[dani-namaste.livejournal.com]

what was the holiday? I don't see it on my calendar.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

See my reply to curiositykt above.

[dani-namaste.livejournal.com]

I noticed it - I just don't really have time to look back on the six pages of friends-list that I haven't had a chance to catch up on. Thanks., though - I think I figured it out.

[ron_newman]

it's much easier to just look back a few entries here in davis_square (or click on the "garbage" tag)

[dani-namaste.livejournal.com]

thanks for the advice - my response wasn't really based on the looking a few pages back, it's more based on the fact that I had a question that no one wanted to actually answer.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

OK, I apologize if I was overly snarky in my reply. Still, I did say "this is a followup to the previous post" so how hard would it have been to go dig up the aforementioned previous post and answer the question for yourself?

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Recycling continues to be picked up on a non-delayed schedule, if that wasn't clear.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Oh, lame!

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Aaaand they just picked up my trash, on schedule. So if your trash day hasn't come yet, I wouldn't expect a delay.