Trash Bags

THE SPIRIT of voluntarism abounds this week in the frothy wake of the presidential summit in Philadelphia. So, in that spirit -- and in the interest of encouraging governmental support of private citizens who answer the call to community service -- I offer the story of brothers Bobby and Jim Sturgell, their sister Sharon and all others who volunteered for a day of roadside trash pickup in Anne Arundel County. It was a beautiful thing while it lasted.The Sturgell family owns Happy Harbor, a restaurant and tavern in Deale, south of Annapolis.

Of the 30 Howard County residents who spoke against a proposed $125 trash fee last night, no one was more candid about her own garbage than 70-year-old Fronda Port.Ms. Port told the County Council that because she recycled as much as possible she should not have to pay $125 while others don't do their share.Then Ms. Port described this week's waste stream at her Kings Contrivance home: one milk carton (collapsed), one orange juice carton (collapsed), several paper napkins and tissues, small miscellaneous items, "and a chicken bone."

A man robbed the Odenton Food Max store Friday of several cartons of cigarettes, county police said.Cathryn Steele told police the man entered the store in the 1600 block of Annapolis Road shortly after 1 p.m., walked behind the ** counter and pulled two empty trash bags from his pocket.He threatened to kill Ms. Steele if she activated the holdup alarm and patted his pocket to imply that he had a weapon, police said. The man filled the trash bags with cigarettes, ordered Ms. Steele to lie on the floor, then ran away, police said.

Though some merchants in the Cromwell Field Shopping Center say Baltimoreans are riding the light rail to pilfer their stores, Anne Arundel County county police say that's not quite ++ true."

A 41-year-old man has been charged with the July 24, 1993, fatal beating and stabbing of a woman found stuffed in trash bags in a Northwest Baltimore alley, police reported.James Jackson of the 2000 block of Westwood Ave. was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon with intent to injure in the death of Cheryl Teresa Haywood, 25, police said.Ms. Haywood, of the 2900 block of Oakley Ave., was found in the early morning by two children who had gone out to play in an alley behind the 4600 block of Park Heights Ave., according to police reports.

A badly decomposed human body, possibly that of a female who met with foul play, was found yesterday in a trash bag thrown into a pile of refuse behind an East Baltimore house, city police reported.The body was found shortly before 4 p.m. by workers cleaning trash out of an alley near the 1700 block of Ashland Ave. One of the trash bags ripped during removal, revealing the skeletal remains, police said.Homicide detectives said the body appears to be that of a female but due to the extensive decomposition, it wasn't immediately possible to determine the victim's age or gender.

Around the house* Protect plumbing fixtures when painting a kitchen or bathroom; cover faucets with plastic bags to protect them from spatters.* Dry mop or vacuum hardwood floors frequently. Apply two thin coats of paste wax or a solvent-based liquid wax to clean floors. Allow to dry thoroughly and buff in the direction of the wood grain with an electric polishing machine.* Use adhesive tape instead of straight pins to mark hem lengths and to hold decorative trim in place before sewing.* Hand-washed sweaters can air-dry by spreading them out on an opened lawn chair.

Here's the bad news about Sandy Point State Park's new "trash free" program, which had its first real test over the long Memorial Day weekend: Park rangers had to collect 10 to 15 truckloads of trash bags that 12,000 visitors left strewn across the beach and picnic grounds.And the good news? That was 80 percent less trash than was hauled away on Memorial Day weekend a year ago, before the state Department of Natural Resources got rid of trash bins at all state parks and started handing out recyclable trash bags and making park visitors responsible for hauling away their own garbage.

After their survey showed that Eldersburg Elementary School was discarding too much lunch trash, three fifth-grade students launched their own Earth-saving program. Now the 11-year-old boys are urging their schoolmates to pack environmentally friendly lunches.The school lunch crowd of 500 throws away bags, cardboard drink boxes, candy wrappers and plastic bags by the hundreds.All that refuse goes to the county landfill in 35 huge garbage bags a week."It's true; I helped count," said Philip Vanier.

Trashathon nets 2,860 pounds of trashOutpost 46 of the Savage Royal Rangers had their eighth annual Trashathon recently, which involved picking up litter, trash and junk in Savage Park, the historic mill area and along the streets of Savage.The group picked up 2,860 pounds of trash in less than four hours Sept. 26, thanks to the efforts of about 20 children from ages 5 to 17, plus about 20 adults, ages 18 to over 60.BFI supported the Trashathon by donating large Dumpsters and a truck to haul trash to the county dump.

By the time the last of the runners completed Saturday's Baltimore Running Festival, there was hardly any evidence of the many water bottles, used cups and waste that pile up at the finish line. That's because volunteers such as 10-year-old Justin Thiels worked hard to clean up in an environmentally sustainable way as part of the event's first-ever green initiative. "This is fun," Thiels said as he picked up Gatorade cups and plastic bottles and put them in appropriate trash bags to be composted and recycled, respectively.

Disappearing cans, and a flawed trash policy When I first moved to my neighborhood in West Baltimore 22 years ago, I diligently put out my trash in metal cans with tight-fitting lids. After having four or five cans so badly dented by the trash men tossing them around that they were unusable, or having them stolen by who-knows-who in the first year, I reluctantly switched to setting my trash out in plastic bags. With the public information campaign by the city telling me that putting out trash in trash cans has always been the law and is now going to be strictly enforced, I purchased a sturdy, plastic wheeled and lidded container for $14.87 plus tax. Put my trash out in the new can the evening before trash day the first week of the new trash schedule.

Leave it up to our illustrious leaders, who apparently have nothing better to do, to spend time considering outlawing plastic bags ("Plastic might get the sack," June 8). Plastic bags don't litter; people do. And if we follow the so-called logic behind the drive to outlaw this useful commodity, I suppose we should also outlaw cans, glass and plastic bottles, paper and so on. But until we change the culture, which I doubt will happen in my lifetime or that of my children, litter will not go away.

Third of four parts --Iven Bailey was on the move again. He carried two black trash bags, one for shoes, the other for everything else. He trudged down Harford Road past the wreckage of one abandoned building after another until he found what he was looking for, a dreary little rowhouse with a front door the color of dry dirt. This would be his home for now. Or, rather, his dwelling. It was early April of this year, and for the past three months, Iven, 18, had boarded with a neighborhood woman, Betty Jones, in a house two blocks to the north.

Home: It's never done You love your house. It's cozy, it's quaint and it's all yours. You've fixed it up, scrubbed it down, maybe even added on to it. And you're not done. With home ownership, there's always something that needs doing, tending, fixing, updating or replacing. And, of course, there's always that dream project. Visit the Fall Maryland Home and Garden Show Friday, Saturday and Oct. 17 and discover what's new and interesting in home improvement. This year's show offers an array of elaborate and functional pools, spas and saunas, windows, doors, decks and fences, kitchens and baths, home-security systems, furnishings and more.

Charles Miller, James Berry and Rashad Dendy were putting the polish on Pennsylvania Avenue near Sandtown-Winchester yesterday morning, sweeping and bagging trash while city workers sandblasted graffiti from walls. The youngsters were among more than 4,000 volunteers in 189 neighborhoods who turned out for "Super Spring Sweep Thing III - Let's Paint the Town," a day of cleaning up trash and removing graffiti. Charles, 13, was using a sharp-ended metal pole to poke stray pieces of litter.

At Herring Run Park yesterday, joggers loped on the asphalt path, dogs tugged at taut leashes and some 70 volunteers diligently cleaned up the trash-lined stream that gives the Northeast Baltimore park its name. As filled garbage bags popped up like the suddenly ubiquitous dandelions, similar acts of environmental stewardship were occurring across the region at other spots in the city and in Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties. The second annual Project Clean Stream, organized by the Irvine Nature Center in Stevenson, was in full bloom, a concerted effort to beautify natural treasures that double as dumping grounds.

As head of Southwest Baltimore's Neighborhood Assistance Program, Louise Hintze helped feed the hungry, clothe the needy and bury the poor. It was hardly a glamorous job and paid less than $22,000 a year, but finding a replacement for Hintze, who died in December of pancreatic cancer at 71, grew political and personal, say those involved. Politicians and judges lobbied for Claradeinia "Dina" Koethe to be named Hintze's successor. Koethe, who had volunteered under Hintze, collected more than 700 signatures on a petition backing her for the job. Judith Bennick, executive director of Communities Organized to Improve Life, or COIL, said she was pressured to hire Koethe and fears the woman lacks the know-how to fill the position and have Hintze's impact.

Police officers sifting through trash bags set out for collection do not violate the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled yesterday. In a 4--3 decision, the state's highest court reversed and remanded a Court of Special Appeals decision to reverse the drug-possession conviction of a Dorchester County woman after evidence found in her trash was used to prosecute her. The court ruled that people have no right to privacy in their trash once it has been set out to be picked up. "If the trash is placed for collection at a place that is readily accessible, and thus exposed to the public, the person has relinquished any reasonable expectation of privacy," Judge Alan M. Wilner wrote in the 14-page opinion.

The trash bags went out at night within arm's reach of the sidewalk for routine trash collection in Cambridge on the Eastern Shore. The next morning, they were gone. But six times in 1997, police, rather than the trash collector, took them without a search warrant. In a long-established law enforcement practice commonly used in drug and espionage cases, the police sifted through the garbage, hunting for evidence of illegal drugs. They used the cocaine residue they found to get a search warrant for the house.