By Anna Gustafson
City Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) said fewer pickups of street-side garbage bins have amounted to mounds of trash piling up on borough streets, attracting rodents and causing residents to receive undeserved tickets. In response he announced Monday his plans to introduce legislation to mandate the city empty sidewalk trash cans daily.
“One unfortunate constant in New York City is the blight of overflowing litter baskets,” said Gennaro, who held a news conference with state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Whitestone) outside his office at 185-10 Union Tnpk. in Fresh Meadows Monday afternoon.
Gennaro will introduce the legislation within the next couple of weeks, and he said the bill would help address the trash that frequently spills from city baskets, especially those along Hillside Avenue, Union Turnpike and Queens Boulevard. These bins, Gennaro said, used to be serviced by a daily truck but now are emptied about two times a week, leaving trash to fall onto the sidewalk and attract rodents.
The decrease in litter basket collection comes at a time when the city Sanitation Department has received an additional $4 million for Queens trash collection in the 2010 budget passed this summer, Gennaro said. The councilman did not specify how much it would cost to implement a daily collection of street-side bins.
The city has also been ticketing homeowners for trash that has blown from the pileups to sidewalks in front of residences, according to Gennaro. The councilman has heard from dozens of residents complaining about the excess trash and the ensuing problems, such as tickets.
Transportation spokesman Matthew Lipani said the department “makes every effort to keep New York City clean and safe for all New Yorkers.”
“That’s why our streets have been independently rated the cleanest they have been in nearly 35 years,” Lipani continued. “Litter basket collection is a priority and, in spite ofapainful but necessary $80 million budget reduction in 2010, we will devote all available resources to servicing baskets in high-density, heavily-trafficked areas as often as possible.”
“The condition of a city’s streets can reveal a great deal about how much it cares how its citizens live,” Stavisky said. “If the city does not empty the trash bins on a regular basis, the street corners become unsightly and it looks like the city doesn’t care.”
State Assemblymen Mark Weprin (D-Little Neck) and Rory Lancman (D-Fresh Meadows) also backed Gennaro’s proposal.
“Daily collection of trash from street-side baskets would be a real quality-of-life improvement for the people of New York City,” Weprin said.
Lancman said the city “needs to set an example for citizens to follow if it really wants to keep our streets clean, and it starts with daily trash bin cleanup.”
The Council passed similar legislation in 2004 mandating a weekly recycling collection after the Sanitation Department cut recycling pickup to every other week in 2002.
Reach reporter Anna Gustafson by e-mail at agustafson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 174.
