Drafting Downtown Trash Management Principles as Part of City Contract Process

As the City of Boston gears up for the bidding process that will ultimately lead to a new City waste management collection and disposal contract, efforts are underway to arrive at a consensus amongst several downtown neighborhood residents and organizations / groups regarding the policy for when trash can be placed curbside for pick-up, when trash should be picked up and the number of recycling days per week. The City of Boston is considering the next 3-year contract for residential trash pickup that will go into effect in July 2014. (See Residential Garbage Contract Debated at City Hall Meeting)

Surveys and Petitions:

• Public Works is distributing an online survey.
• Toni Gilardi’s online petition for ‘same day pickup.’
• North End Trash Survey Results – February 2013

At its upcoming meeting this week, the South End Forum is seeking to present to various Boston City Councilors–and adopt–the following 9 proposals concerning this very important and serious public issue. The first two points may be viable options for the North End (especially if a same-day pick-up policy fails to be implemented in our neighborhood). Perhaps the trash and recycling issue is one that can unite our neighborhood residents.

—————————————————————————————————–

South End Forum Trash Management Key Principles
[Created as unified SE neighborhood feedback/concerns in advance of negotiations on a new Boston trash/recycle collection contract]
November, 2013

1. The SE Forum supports bold measures to reduce the amount of time that bagged trash is on the streets while waiting for pick up. The South End Forum, after a pilot project in two neighborhoods and two public meetings, endorsed the notion of immediately changing the allowable time that trash may be put out from 5 PM to 9 PM and asked for immediate implementation/education. This has not yet been implemented by PWD for the entire South End.

2. As part of the new contract terms in 2014, the SE Forum strongly supports alternative strategies for trash and recycle pick-up timing, to include “overnight” pick up (e.g. pick up to occur between 11:30PM to 2 AM) utilizing “quiet” truck technology. We urge immediate testing of this approach in one or two selected representative South End neighborhoods to demonstrate whether the new technology tolerably minimizes the noise from overnight trash collection in our compact brownstone neighborhood streets and alleyways.

3. Regardless of what pick up time is ultimately negotiated (overnight or other timing scheme), the SE Forum strongly favors a limited trash pick up window (e.g from 6 AM to 11 AM or some variation thereof that limits pick up time to a finite number of morning hours rather than days). We are strongly opposed to “open-ended” pick up times that span from the afternoon of the day before through the late afternoon of the day after. We believe that only by dramatically limiting the amount of time that bagged trash is allowed to be on our streets, sidewalks, and alleyways (from the current 36-48 hours every week) will we begin to see any kind of impact improvement.

4. The SE Forum supports efforts to aggressively improve recycling participation and compliance (lack thereof the chief reason for trash scavenging) including pilot testing of “compulsory” recycling (with implementation of a fine structure) for failure to comply. We strongly support installation of separate recycling containers at big belly and other sidewalk trash receptacle locations.

5. The SE Forum favors a contract that requires pick up of trash “debris fields” on sidewalks and in the street following trash pick up either by the contractor or by a team from PWD that accompanies trash pick up trucks. It is important to note that this is ONLY required in neighborhoods with “bagged” trash (North End, Beacon Hill, South End, Bay Village, Charlestown).

We believe that the contract, contractor, and PWD must recognize the unique nature of the city center geography, the fact that our compact neighborhoods cannot support widespread use of “containers,” that we face aggressive and and destructive trash scavenging that most other city neighborhoods do not face, and that “bagged” trash is a unique problem that requires limiting the amount of time it is allowed on the streets (from put out time to pick up time). Trash management for all neighborhoods who use a “bagged” trash approach is universally forecast to become incrementally worse when/if an expansion to the bottle bill is approved by the legislature and signed by the governor.

6. The South End Forum supports a meeting with neighborhood representatives of the North End, Beacon Hill, Bay Village, and Charlestown to address the unique trash management challenges common to these neighborhoods. These neighborhoods primarily utilize bags placed on-street or in alleyways for both trash and recycle pick up. We look to the City Council, the Mayor’s Office, and our partners at PWD to initiate this dialogue well in advance of specifications finalized or negotiations undertaken on a new waste management contract.

7. The South End Forum supports creating authorization for having the City Public Works Department establish, manage, and be accountable for its own Code Enforcement Division/force that is specifically focused on trash and recycling violations throughout the City of Boston. By having collection and enforcement under one roof, Public Works will be able to provide neighborhoods with day to day enforcement reliability and resource management that is essential to an improved trash management environment in the city.

8. The South End Forum supports reliable and comparative research into whether the City of Boston should end outsourcing both trash and recycling removal.

9. The South End Forum supports twice a week recycling pickup (Tuesdays and Fridays) and is willing to support eliminating trash removal on Fridays in favor of recycling only.