Reducing trash a responsible choice
Annie Linskey's article "Garbage pickup bill trashed at hearing as too restrictive" (April 8) inaccurately characterized the tenor of the City Council hearing on the city's "One Plus One" trash plan.
The Department of Public Works has spent more than one year studying current trash service and household trash volumes. Our study indicates that most households that recycle can easily stay within the new 64-gallon weekly trash limit.
Lobbyists for the real estate and landlord communities did voice concerns about new volume limits at the hearing, even as they registered support for the bill.
Their concerns about volume limits are well-founded. Our residential waste collection service was designed to serve single-family homes, and our focus continues to be on our primary customers, the homeowners of Baltimore.
Commercial business owners, including multi-family rental property owners, are required by law to provide adequate waste removal for their property. They can take advantage of city trash service but are, and will continue to be, restricted to the same volume limits imposed on homeowners.
Under the "One Plus One" legislation, all property owners will be able to continue using city service, but we will ask them to take on the same responsibilities we are asking of homeowners: to utilize adequate trash cans with lids for exterior trash storage, reduce their volume of trash, and recycle.
Implementing a standard municipal can program will help bring all properties into compliance with the sanitation code while reducing litter, illegal dumping and the rat population.
We as a community can clean up our city, but doing so requires that we all take personal responsibility for managing our waste to preserve precious landfill space, keep the streets and alleys clean and manage our costs.
David E. Scott, Baltimore
The writer is director of Baltimore's Department of Public Works.
New trash quotas just too limited
Mayor Sheila Dixon's once-a-week trash-collecting/recycling proposal might work in Roland Park, Hampden, Hunting Ridge (where Ms. Dixon lives) or even Ashburton ("Garbage pickup bill trashed at hearing as too restrictive," April 8). But for my inner-city neighborhood, it would mean more trash on the street and in the alley and more rats in my backyard.
