WYPR: Youthworks Spreads The News About Trash Pickup Change (2009-07-03)

Kane Samuel, a 14-year-old in the city's Youthworks program had just finished running up and down nearly 24 blocks in East Baltimore with an armload of flyers explaining the changes in the trash collection program. He stuck some in doors and mailboxes and handed some to others who were walking by.

Few of those folks, he said, had much to say.

"Some of them, they do recycle and you got others that don't so really gotta go into deep explanation to them about what you can recycle and what's not be able to recycle and I gotta tell them when to get their trash out."

He's part of about 120 youths the city has put to work in the last few weeks, canvassing neighborhoods with flyers and clipboards. Last week, they were in Canton. Yesterday, they worked their way along McElderry Street and up down the side streets from Fayette to Milton.

Hope Williams, who runs the program, said the Department of Public Works is trying to keep the message basic.

"And it's great that we're utilizing kids to deliver this message because they can deliver it on a level that's plain, that's understandable for anyone."

They covered about four thousand homes yesterday, in part, to let people know when the change will occur July 13th and also, Williams said, to dispel "a lot of myths out there." For example, they are only going to collect trash once-a-week.

"We still are providing two collections a week. We're just asking that one of your collection days be set aside for your mixed refuse, your non-recyclables, your trash. The other day is set aside for your clean trash, which is recyclable."

But she was having a hard time convincing Milton Swann, who met her on his porch along McElderry.

"All this other stuff, yeah, boy, that's great. You know, we can do that. But you still got that garbage you have to hold onto it a whole week right now instead of a couple days. It's just about household waste management, so it's about managing."

Later, Swann said, he isn't sure if this is a change for the better because things have changed in the 30 years since he first moved here. People, he added, don't take responsibility for themselves the way they used to.

Celeste Amato directs the Mayor Sheila Dixon's initiative of a cleaner, greener Baltimore. She said one reason of the change in trash routes came because of population shifts.

"Some neighborhoods have been torn down and rebuilt, lower density, so we're really taking into account the way our population is today and routing the city so that we are addressing, we are serving those addresses in a more efficient manner. We did have crews that could serve, do their route in two to three hours and crews that could take almost six hours to do their route."

The change also helps put an emphasis on recycling, said Amato. Now, the city only collects recyclables twice-a-month. And that, she added, makes it just too much of an after thought.

"So, that means making it easy, going to single stream recycling so there's no more sorting, and it means picking it up once a week so it's not piling up in people's basements or garages. We had to make recycling as important as trash to get people to look at this as two halves of a whole service and start to raise the consciousness of just how much waste we're throwing away instead of re-using."

For Kane Samuel, that also means extending the life of the city's landfill. The Youthworks crews visited there last week. Kane said what he saw was "just a shame."

"I just saw like paper and all that stuff, stuff that could've been re-used and then like trees I just saw stuff that just had no business out there. It was just a waste to cut down the trees, just to see the paper out there and the ash and all the plastic bottles. It's just a shame."

For more information, residents can call the city's "311" line, or go to www.baltimorecity.gov .

I'm Joel McCord, reporting in East Baltimore, for 88.1, WYPR