North End residents are just over a month in to the new trash collection schedule of Monday and Thursday mornings, altered from the previous schedule of Monday and Friday mornings. Consequently, the traditional Thursday street sweeping was moved to Friday.
There were a few goals behind this switch, explained by Superintendent of Waste Reduction Brian Coughlin to the Residents’ Association and Neighborhood Council in June. Having trash collected on Thursday would hopefully ease weekend delivery truck traffic on Friday. Trash trucks would not be competing with delivery trucks, and trash bags wouldn’t be taking up space along the curb.
The changes also meant that street sweeping would happen after trash pick-up, collecting any small items that got left behind on garbage day.
How’s the switch been going for you? Have you found Thursday trash pick-up to make more sense for your street / area of the neighborhood? Vote in our poll and add your comments in the section below.
Web polls are unscientific and reflect only those who choose to participate. NorthEndWaterfront.com polls do not have any official significance and are only intended for the interest of our readers.
For omg the trash to be put out at night has created more of a mess and the sidewalks are more crowded by debris on those nights. I have many buildings around me that put the trash out the morning-of and after the picks ups.
This is a people problem not a trash pickup problem. Seems like most people don’t want to get up at 5:45 AM to take their trash out and choose to put it out at night or continue to put it out on their way to work even when THERE IS NO OTHER TRASH ON THE STREET. OR ITS THE WRONG DAY
It is absolutely a people problem & there is no app that I know of to take take out the trash for these pigs and Mommy and daddy can’t help them.
I don’t think moving a day really made the difference. Streets are still dirty, trash pickers are still ripping the bags apart spilling trash all over the sidewalks and the city is doing nothing about it. Some residents still think the trash day is Friday or whatever day they want and putting trash out whenever. I counted 10 violation tickets on Monday just on my street. It’s just a disgrace really that our beautiful neighborhood is so neglected.
I don’t think the DAY of pickup is so much the problem as the TIME of pickup is. With the 6AM pickup, more trash is put out the night before — creating a significant mess by morning between the seagulls, rats, and trash-pickers. And then there are those who don’t put it out on time on the morning of pick up,
but just leave it there anyway.
While it’s been difficult getting people to pay attention to the new schedule (Thu vs. Fri), hopefully that could eventually be resolved with more PSA’s, etc.
Until Marty Walsh became mayor we had trash pickup three days a week, Monday, Wednesday & Friday. He cut it back to two days to save money and now we are over run with rats and filth. We need three day trash pick up in the North End.
Trash pick up days were reduced from 3 to 2 yes, to reduce costs, but just as importantly to decrease the amount of time household trash is sitting out on the sidewalks. The cleanliness of the streets on non-collection days is better now, but we still have to do something about reducing the amount of trash put out overnight. This is a huge problem for all the reasons noted above, and moving the collection time from 7 to 6am has only made it worse!
3 days pick up means 6 days with trash bags lining the streets
I think the garage company is the best. We had them before but then it was changed and they we not good. This one now has been always good. I still would prefer back to Friday
I buy boneless meats and grind food waste in a garbage disposal so that there isn’t food waste in the trash. Clean jars and cans too. I try not to have anything that would attract a rat. Also, shred bills and junk with my name on it to not attract scammers. I think the quality of what we throw away contributes to the problem.
Hanover and Salem streets smell like rotting garbage every morning in the summer. We need a new system. It’s ridiculous to have bags and loose trash sitting on the sidewalks at all – ever. Many European cities have solved this problem decades ago by using dumpsters in public spaces, but god forbid we lose a few parking spots. Businesses should be held accountable for greasy filthy streaks on the street and sidewalk left by their leaky bins or sloppy pickup contractors. This isn’t rocket science…but it requires an investment by the city, and commitment from the community and willingness to change the status quo on everyone’s part.
What to the dumpsters smell like?
MarkB, apparently you’ve never been to the European cities where the trash overflows the dumpsters on the street or has been left outside of it. I saw this for myself when I went to the city in Italy where my father’s family is from. I’m not talking about a small town either, this was in a major city.
Way better than the current state of affairs. They have smaller openings and/or trap doors, so there is no external odors in my experiences. I have also seen systems installed underground with a cylindrical tube that sits above grade. This has a trap door on the top where residents deposit their trash and it goes into the underground dumpster.
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/recycling-industry-modern-recycling-containers-on-the-city-refuse-bins-in-traditional-gm815630356-131947031
https://mashable.com/2017/02/15/villiger-underground-waste-disposal-system/
Belle, I have, but that would seem to be a City management issue and easier to manage problem than the current state of affairs. New ideas are never perfect and it’s easy to come up with 100 reason’s why they won’t work. One has to look at the pros and cons of all possible solutions and chose a *better* way forward. I personally don’t believe that there will ever be enough education, good will, manpower, or budget to make the current system work in any practical sense. We need to change it to something else. Maybe dumpsters aren’t it, but there are a lot of congested cities out there that don’t smell like garbage in the morning, so let’s think different than the status quo.
The weekly trash collections were reduced from three pickups to two to save money. Have to wonder how these would save money. Also consider the congestion in the North End and lack of space which gets worse during the winter snow storms, implementation could be a problem. The idea of a central collection point or transfer station sounds good, I don’t see many residents that are willing to walk their trash around to the bin. Plus would you want the neighborhood bin in front of your place? Expect a fight about that.
Truth be told it seems that some people have selective amnesia when it comes to this problem. Since the Callahan Tunnel was built, the demolition of the central artery , the disaster AKA as the”big Dig” A hundred restaurants in a few blocks and two million tourists a year visiting the neighborhood rats and trash have been an issue in the NE for 50 years. So don’t buy into the BS that this is a problem that just started recently and it isn’t going to be solved if people are unwilling to at least try some new ideas and plans and to hold the CITY accountable.