Tons Of Trash

A citywide community cleanup Saturday netted 631 tons of trash and debris in what public works officials are calling Baltimore's largest single-day haul for such an event.The cleanup effort was the kick-off for the Community Pitch-In Program, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's initiative to help neighborhoods clean up with the help of Department of Public Works crews."We had 42 communities throughout the city participate, which resulted in this phenomenal 631 tons of trash and debris that the community cleaned out of yards, houses and alleys," said Kurt L. Kocher, a public works spokesman.

Baltimore's bid to boost once-a-week recycling produced long lines, chilly complaints - and an unexpected run on the yellow plastic bins. And they weren't even giving them away. The turnout suggests robust interest in the city's move to a single pickup of recyclables, but that has gotten lost in the post-bin critiques. We're not being apologists for the Dixon administration, just realists. When the city ordered 10,000 new bins, it didn't pluck the figure out of the air. It was based on the current number of recycling households - 48,000 of the city's 210,000 - and an estimate of potential newcomers.

An estimated 3,000 tons of trash were collected during Saturday's Super Spring Sweep Thing II, and at a lower cost than last year's event, city officials said. This year, it cost about $17 per ton to remove the trash, compared with $100 per ton last year, the officials said. Last year, 2,600 tons of trash were collected. About 3,000 volunteers from 150 communities pitched in this year. Last year, 2,000 volunteers participated. In addition to removing trash, volunteers painted over graffiti, planted flowers and swept streets.

A citizens' appeal has put the $3 million expansion of Harford's only public landfill on hold and forced the county to export some of its trash to conserve space. The appeal, which could take up to a year to resolve, makes it unlikely that the long-planned expansion will be built before the Harford Waste Disposal Center runs out of space at its 66-acre site in Street. The county began shipping trash to an incinerator in Baltimore last month at a cost of $60 per ton. "It ain't cheap to pay for transportation costs and disposal," said Frank Henderson, Harford's deputy director of environmental affairs.

They waded knee-deep in the muck -- a shoreline obscured by garbage of all sorts and coated with the same black sheen that floated on the waters of the Patapsco River's Middle Branch.When the five-hour cleanup ended yesterday, more than 100 volunteers had bagged some 5 tons of trash -- hunks of wood and debris, tires, bottles and foam cups, paint cans and waterlogged jugs, and dozens of crack vials and about 1,000 hypodermic syringes.While volunteers toiled at the on land with rakes, plastic bags and poles equipped with metal spikes to stab trash, others took to the water in seven dinghies, using hooks at the end of ropes to harvest almost 250 tires.

More than 5,500 volunteers removed 460 tons of trash from Baltimore streets, alleys and parks Saturday as part of the annual Super Spring Sweep Thing organized by the mayor's office to help clean up the city, the Department of Public Works announced. The eighth cleanup involved 260 neighborhood groups that collected 55 more tons of trash and debris this year than in 2006. But the total did not come close to the first year the event was held, in 2000, when officials say 2,500 volunteers collected 3,000 tons of trash.

Lake Shore site yields tons of trashWhen county workers hauled 112 tons of trash out of the future Lake Shore Athletic Complex last month, nearly 80 percent of it went to the Millersville Landfill.The rest was recycled. Almost 13 tons of scrap metal were plucked from the woods and scrub that cover the 127-acre site, and sent to United Iron and Metal in South Baltimore, county spokeswoman Louise Hayman said.Another 13 tons of tires were sent to Joseph Smith and Sons Inc., a Prince George's County recycler, Ms. Hayman said.

A national refuse-disposal company offered a half-dozen suburban counties, including Anne Arundel and Carroll, a volume discount yesterday on trash-munching microbes.Nelson Widell, executive vice president of Bedminster Bioconversion Corp., told a group of elected officials in Annapolis that the company would reduce its prices if several of the counties decided to build composting plants for mixed solid waste.The plants would rely on bacteria -- the same ones found in the decaying grass clippings and leaves in the back yard -- to turn trash, from pizza boxes to old shoes, into nutrient-rich dirt.

Over the last 3 1/2 years, volunteers working together on citywide cleanup days have collected 11,715 tons of trash - the weight of a small aircraft carrier. Hoping to keep the battle against litter blazing, Mayor Martin O'Malley yesterday unveiled plans for the fourth annual fall cleanup on Saturday, Oct. 11. "The fall cleanup effort is important because we are always trying to make our city a cleaner and better place," O'Malley said. "Each fall, we marshal an army of volunteers, and each fall we get more people helping and there is less garbage to collect."

Baltimore's bid to boost once-a-week recycling produced long lines, chilly complaints - and an unexpected run on the yellow plastic bins. And they weren't even giving them away. The turnout suggests robust interest in the city's move to a single pickup of recyclables, but that has gotten lost in the post-bin critiques. We're not being apologists for the Dixon administration, just realists. When the city ordered 10,000 new bins, it didn't pluck the figure out of the air. It was based on the current number of recycling households - 48,000 of the city's 210,000 - and an estimate of potential newcomers.

More than 5,500 volunteers removed 460 tons of trash from Baltimore streets, alleys and parks Saturday as part of the annual Super Spring Sweep Thing organized by the mayor's office to help clean up the city, the Department of Public Works announced. The eighth cleanup involved 260 neighborhood groups that collected 55 more tons of trash and debris this year than in 2006. But the total did not come close to the first year the event was held, in 2000, when officials say 2,500 volunteers collected 3,000 tons of trash.

The state's decision on whether to approve a permit allowing Harford County to expand its only municipal landfill will be pushed into next year after officials extended the public comment period in the wake of a contentious hearing that attracted more than 100 angry residents. Maryland Department of the Environment officials added time for comment after a meeting Thursday at Dublin Elementary School in Street at which nearby residents opposed a plan for expansion of the Harford Waste Disposal Center.

Over the last 3 1/2 years, volunteers working together on citywide cleanup days have collected 11,715 tons of trash - the weight of a small aircraft carrier. Hoping to keep the battle against litter blazing, Mayor Martin O'Malley yesterday unveiled plans for the fourth annual fall cleanup on Saturday, Oct. 11. "The fall cleanup effort is important because we are always trying to make our city a cleaner and better place," O'Malley said. "Each fall, we marshal an army of volunteers, and each fall we get more people helping and there is less garbage to collect."

An estimated 3,000 tons of trash were collected during Saturday's Super Spring Sweep Thing II, and at a lower cost than last year's event, city officials said. This year, it cost about $17 per ton to remove the trash, compared with $100 per ton last year, the officials said. Last year, 2,600 tons of trash were collected. About 3,000 volunteers from 150 communities pitched in this year. Last year, 2,000 volunteers participated. In addition to removing trash, volunteers painted over graffiti, planted flowers and swept streets.

Coming soon to an alley or trash-strewn lot near you: Mayor Martin O'Malley's Super Spring Sweep Thing II. In the mayor's second annual campaign to curb Baltimore's year-round trash problem, the Department of Public Works and city residents started mobilizing yesterday for the major citywide cleanup, scheduled for Saturday. This year, the event will be held for one day, not two. The city will again provide brooms, rakes, shovels, gloves and bags to all who want to get their hands dirty and their neighborhoods clean.

Dented soup cans. Discarded Barbie dolls. An old armchair covered in brown and orange plaid tweed. From a Carroll County trash heap, those unwanted items are among the tons of garbage hauled every day to be burned in a York, Pa., incinerator. After cooking for 30 minutes at 1,800 degrees, the ash is trucked three miles to the "picking line," where workers in blue jeans and hard hats remove barely recognizable coins, costume jewelry and the occasional I-beam - anything that survives the incinerator.

Anne Arundel County Executive John G. Gary unveiled a trash disposal plan yesterday that he said would save taxpayers $74 million and prolong the life of the Millersville landfill.The plan, which involves composting, shipping garbage out of the county and using waste-to-energy plants, creates "an enormous amount of savings," Mr. Gary said. "This gives us a solid plan to deal with the solid waste problem for the next 70 years or so."But environmentalists were skeptical that the plan would work, saying it contained hidden costs and offered troubling alternatives to landfilling.

Coming soon to an alley or trash-strewn lot near you: Mayor Martin O'Malley's Super Spring Sweep Thing II. In the mayor's second annual campaign to curb Baltimore's year-round trash problem, the Department of Public Works and city residents started mobilizing yesterday for the major citywide cleanup, scheduled for Saturday. This year, the event will be held for one day, not two. The city will again provide brooms, rakes, shovels, gloves and bags to all who want to get their hands dirty and their neighborhoods clean.

More than 1,000 tons of wilted garbage cling to Baltimore's streets and alleys, a constant reminder of the city's urban woes. Beginning tomorrow, some 4,000 street-cleaning, T-shirt-clad volunteers armed with rakes, shovels, brooms, bags and gloves will tackle the scattered eyesores that foster rodents, repulse residents and repel homebuyers. At 9 a.m., more than 50 churches have agreed to chime their bells to sound the beginning of Mayor Martin O'Malley's two-day Super Spring Sweep Thing.

NEW YORK -- Interested in cornering the aluminum and plastics markets? Just show up in Central Park after the Garth Brooks concert tonight. Doug Blonsky predicts there will 1 million soda cans and 2 million water bottles left by 150,000 to 250,000 spectators. In all, the estimated 76,800 tons of garbage could pack an empty five-story apartment building.We're talking TRASH, and it's Blonsky's job to throw it away. As vice president of operations for the Central Park Conservancy, Blonsky oversees the cleanup of the park's mega-spectacles.