Kendra writes us suggesting that although with any city life trash is inevitable, its seems sometimes Dorchester has it worse then other parts of Boston. She says, "plastic bottles, chip bags, and piles of canine poop" litter the streets and that we can do better. We agree.Doing a little of our own research, we walked from Ashmont to Fields Corner today - and counted only 12 trash cans along the mile long stretch of the Avenue. In fact, most barrels were grouped 2 or 3 together in 5 locations (It was particularly trash-can absent near Town Field and Ashmont Station). This lack of recycling and trash receptacles must have been what drove one man further down the Avenue to throw his trash into someone's front yard (a.k.a. unofficial trash can). This is a two-part improvement involving infrastructure and personal responsibility. The people of Dorchester do walk around, and should be encouraged to do so, as a result there should be both trash AND recycling cans along the main roads, such as Dorchester and Blue Hill Avenues and Columbia Road (particularly near bus stops and subways station entrances) and highly populated side streets. We must also encourage personal responsibility among our fellow residents, until we get those bins (see photos for exemplars) pack it with you (think back-country manners), pick up after your pets, and if you feel so moved, do a little extra for the sake of the neighborhood.
We would like to encourage all Dorchester residents to contract Mayor Constitute Services and inform them of the need for more trash cans on Dorchester Ave. - www.cityofboston.gov/mayor/24/.
Do you think this is a good idea? Rate below.
(Pictures from San Francisco [notice the ultra-smart recycle bin hood], New York City, and Paris)
8 comments:
Thanks, Think Tankers!
I think they should definitely put more cans around the Ashmont T station. I know they have been doing construction there, but the people that must wait for the bus on Dorchester Ave. have no where to put their trash and just throw it on the ground.
I counted about 12 trash cans between Fields Corner and Ashmont T. Is this a problem solved or are there just not visible enough?
In full disclosure, our research was secondary to our search for kimchi. It is possible our research was clouded and we missed one (or eleven). It is possible that more garbage cans have been put out since our walk. It is possible it was trash day. :) We'll do a second trip soon and publish the new, more accurate data then. Thanks for the heads up.
We live down by town field right off of Dot Ave & we have long noticed the absence of receptacles. My better half is good about picking up the trash off the sidewalks while we are out walking our dog wround the neighborhood (we pick up after ours). We have actually been leaving our trash barrel out for passers-by to use rather than throw trash on the ground... not too surprisingly it has helped cut down around our house. I've tried to find out how to get a city can added at the corner of our street, but to no avail. So for now, our unsightly brown barrell it is!
btw... thanks for taking the time to blog about Dot... I am always checking out your posts :)
Thanks for putting out you own barrel! After doing a web search, we think that perhaps starting a campaign to contact mayor constitute services might help in our plight. Here is the link... http://www.cityofboston.gov/mayor/24/
You have some great ideas posted here. Thank you.
Here is one to add/ look into: What about trash pick up in Dorchester? It is only one day a week here. I don't understand why this is the case. When I lived in Jamaica Plain the trash was picked up twice a week. On Saturdays it was trash only and on Wednesdays it was recycling and trash. I think that Dorchester would benefit immensely from the same two day a week collection. What do you think?
So we finally had a chance to re-walk the route between Fields Corner and Ashmont, and thechak is correct, there are 12 trash cans (we weren't paying as much attention as we should have been - we were really focusing on the kimchi search). Although we should mention that most barrels were in areas where they would be grouped by 2 or 3 together, so in actuality our count had 5 locations where barrels could be found. Thanks to thechack for correcting us on this!
Post a Comment