Perfect for Mother's Day: the Baby Be of Use series or The Secret Language of Sleep. - - - - |
- - - - [Matty Greenburg is an employee of a garbage-removal company in a major city on the East Coast. He answers calls from citizens when there is debris and litter on the streets. Below are a sampling of the thoughts of these callers.]- - - - Batch #2 (2/24/04) 937 Herbertson Street East. The garbage can is overflowing with garbage. There're paint cans. There're rats and there're mice. - - - - My name is Harris, H-A-R-R-I-S, and I reside at 12 Red Tree Drive in the west end of the city. What I am trying to find out is... people throw coffee cups and soda cans in the dri... on the road. According to this thing I have, I could be fined $305. As a senior citizen, my wife and I, 82 and 76, don't feel that we are responsible for this type of pickup of garbage. Now, children come... they're not children, they're teenagers... they come from three or four or six blocks around on their bicycles to use a basketball net that is provided by the person on the opposite side of the street in front of my house. They make a lot of racket and they leave their soda cans and stuff in front of my place. I also have had an occasion when a dead pigeon has been... died on the curb... it's on the road at the end of my driveway. Now, when I phoned to try to find out about removal, I was told that... that it is my responsibility to pick it up, double-bag it, put it in our garbage can, and put it out with the garbage for the next garbage collection. Well, it happened to be that the day I called was a Tuesday, and Thursday is our collection day, but not for household garbage. So, I don't feel that my wife and I should have this dead bird in our garbage pail for almost two.... [end of message] - - - - Would you please investigate the litter bin at the corner of Applewood Road and Hearth Street, on the east corner where the bus stop is? It is overflowing with the most disgusting bags of dog dirt, which are put into this litter bin and spill out on the sidewalk. It is really absolutely nauseating and it's constantly happening. They empty the litter bin twice a week but it's rapidly filled and now it's overfilled. It's just overflowing on the sidewalk. So please pay attention to that, not only for the people living in the city, but visitors. It's just absolutely nauseating and probably, I suppose, unhealthy. - - - - I guess this is my message. I don't know how long I have. If you want to keep the city clean, then why have the waste containers been removed from where I live? Totally. Not one single waste container can I see. So where are we supposed to put our waste when we are carrying it around the street? Naturally, the only place that there is... is the street. And that is where the people are putting it. Well, I fail to see how you can keep a city clean without those particular items in place. They used to be on every corner. Now there's nothing. So that's what I'm phoning about. I wanted to talk to someone and ask them why they removed it. I can't talk to a machine, can I? So, anyway, that's all I have to say and I don't know what else to do. I guess I'll phone my city councilor. The city is really being run in a haberdash way. I can't even believe I'm talking to a machine. - - - - View Batch #1 (2/04/04)
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