CH doesn't need trash bins

To the Editor:

My response to Tom Diamond (“CH can do better with garbage,” Heights Observer June 2018) is NO—we do not want those huge bins littering our tree lawns all day on trash day. I, and most people on our street and nearby streets, don’t have tons of trash each week. In fact, I usually have two small bags, one with recyclables in it. The ugly huge bins are usually left out on people’s tree lawns all day, sometimes tipped over, looking messy because homeowners don’t return until late afternoon after work. If Mr. Diamond and others would not put tasty treats in their bags and set them out the night before pickup, rodents wouldn’t try to rip the bags open. Meat scraps can be put in [garbage] disposals and vegetable scraps can be put in a compost pile. If I have pieces of chicken skin or bones, I put them in a little bag in the freezer and then into the trash bag the morning of pickup. Frozen meat scraps don’t attract animals. The day I read Mr. Diamond’s tirade about trash pickup, I drove around our neighborhoods and didn’t see one ripped-open trash bag, but I did see lots of bins on neighboring cities’ tree lawns.

Those big bins can be cumbersome. My 92-year-old neighbor who lived alone and had minimal trash couldn’t have toted two bins out to the tree lawn every week. Also consider able-bodied folks who could do that, but have snow-filled driveways during the winter.

We already pay quite high taxes. How much more would we pay if, as he suggests, we purchase high-end garbage lift trucks? And I would prefer to keep our trash collectors employed rather than ditch them for new trucks.

One of the blessings of living in Cleveland Heights is that we can put usable items in our tree lawns and “trash pickers” come by and take them, thus giving some items new life rather than throwing them away. 

Anne Billington

Anne Billington
Cleveland Heights

Read More on Letters To The Editor
Volume 11, Issue 8, Posted 12:54 PM, 07.31.2018