After “burying the lede” on the impact to trash collection, residents of a Boston suburb fumed over their mayor’s planned changes to pickup.
“The rats will be very happy.”
(Video Credit: WBZ-TV)
On November 13, the City of Medford enthusiastically announced a $200,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) toward supporting the goal of Zero Waste. However, it took nearly 10 paragraphs before the press release mentioned the impact on the community would include a reduction in trash collection to every other week as part of the effort to nudge more residents onto the weekly compost plan.
“We made a commitment to Zero Waste in that plan and are making it easier for Medford residents and businesses to reduce, reuse, and recycle materials to restore or renew value, eliminate waste, and decrease pollution,” expressed Medford Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn (D) in the press release, with an expected savings of $1 million per year for the city.
The new plan would set a “baseline” of 32 gallons of trash per household each week, which is said to be in line with MassDEP’s service volume threshold, necessary to be eligible for the Pay As You Throw grant after the state agency had already helped launch the composting program with $105,000.
However, complaints on social media and to WBZ-TV made clear residents were already having issues with rats and the odor from compost that resulted in many storing their waste in the freezer to tamp down on the smell before pickup dates.
“We have a right to weekly trash pick up based on the taxes we pay!! Oh, that’s right, our city only votes for their own raises, expense accounts, and personal assistants!!” wrote one complaint on Facebook, as another said, “This is a horrible idea, the mice and rats are rampant enough as it is.”
“Pick up now is weekly and barrels everywhere are opened and overflowing. So this will double with an every other week pickup. And if one does not put barrels out on given week the trash will be piled up for 4 weeks. The rats will be very happy,” lamented another commenter as someone else sounded off, “This is nuts! So, now i have to pay for another trash can and recycle can, because I have to have enough space to hold 2 weeks of trash.”
Putting the plan in perspective, WBZ-TV’s Mike Sullivan stood beside one of the city’s compost bins that stood barely higher than his knee for the program that about 35% of the community had enrolled in.
The public wasn’t alone in complaining about the plan, as City Council President Zac Bears indicated the council had no input on the matter and had said at a meeting last week, “We’re not seeing any of the benchmarks that would lead us to believe that this is a good change.”
“And I think to have not laid that groundwork … and the fact that this was not the lead of the press release … has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way,” Bears argued as he said, “I think it’s set up this program for failure because I think there’s no trust in it.”
In a statement to WBZ-TV, Bears also contended, “Mayor Lungo-Koehn promised that any potential decision to cut back weekly trash collection would only happen after the City conducted robust public outreach and achieved clear benchmarks. That never happened.”
“Residents who oppose this decision are worried about the negative impacts on quality of life. Residents who support efforts to reduce waste and control trash removal costs that hurt our city budget are worried that this botched rollout means the city won’t make progress on those issues,” he went on.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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