Why Is Myrtle Ave. Messy?
Early Thursday morning, Mar. 7, it felt like the streets and sidewalks of Myrtle Avenue were paved with garbage.
Most noticeable were unending numbers of broken-down diaper or baby-related supply boxes.
Do the commercial garbage and recycling companies who service our local businesses simply think that this is one of those areas where they can haphazardly leave behind broken and inconveniently bundled stacks of cardboard to be dragged down the street by wind and vagrants?
Do our local businesses really have so little respect for local residents that they refuse to properly secure their garbage and recyclables and then properly engage a reputable collection agency to dispose of their refuse?
I’ve lived in this neighborhood for nearly nine years and I’ve found that for the most part, Ridgewood is a great little neighborhood-full of life, a respectful, beautiful, multicul- tural, family-oriented, ever-changing little borough community that strives to be just a bit brighter and more excellent than it was perhaps the day before.
I love that. I love the trees that line many of our streets. I love the kids walking with their parents down the avenues and playing in the parks and lingering in the libraries. I love the street fairs, weekend farmer market, new businesses, quiet side streets, bustling Myrtle Avenue, little hardware stores, little cafes that have been popping up, and the amazing restaurants that have grown and began to thrive in our little community.
But I can’t seem to understand how and why every night after business hours and every morning, Myrtle Avenue seems to look and smell like the local business’ personal garbage dump.
The local restaurants that dump their putrid garbage on the sidewalk and let the stench stream down the walkways and street, and the businesses who put their boxes among other businesses’ recycling pick ups to avoid paying for their own services.
The small owners who stuff our street garbage cans so full of their own garbage that pedestrians are left with the choices of holding on to their trash until they can hunt down an empty can, pile their junk onto an ever growing heap atop of an overflowing receptacle, or figure that it doesn’t matter and throw their trash into the streets to be collected by the next passing street cleaning truck, whensoever that may be.
Sigh. What are our options to enforce a cleaner community and a little dignity for our streets-no matter what time of day or night?
Editor’s note: Matteson is a Ridgewood resident.
