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Post by Clipper on May 27, 2011 10:25:50 GMT -5
www.uticaod.com/latestnews/x2085346509/Loose-green-waste-will-no-longer-be-picked-up-in-UticaIt is happening all over. Restricted and reduced services and increased cost of city government. I can see where the fuel costs alone of picking up green waste over the entire city would be prohibitive as hell. The manner in which Utica performs the task involves a loader, a smaller tractor with a push broom on the front, and several dump trucks. At least by restricting the collection to contained materials that can be handled with less equipment, the fuel savings will be significant. It will also prevent green waste from being washed along the gutters and plugging the storm drains. On the down side, in a city that is already having problems with trash and litter on the streets, those that tend to skirt the law rather than to obey it, will be dumping this stuff somewhere in the city or bagging it a leaving it somewhere in the dark of night. I am surprised that they aren't requiring you to put grass clippings in blue bags and pay extra to get rid of them. I picture the new process involving a loader and a dump truck and a couple guys on the ground to dump the containers into the loader bucket to be dumped into the truck. At least it will save ONE vehicle's worth of fuel and a few payroll hours for the operator of the little tractor , as well as the costs of unclogging storm drains when it rains.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2011 13:04:19 GMT -5
Be alot cheaper to use the inmates from the local prisons. They certainly are not doing nothing!
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Post by JGRobinson on May 30, 2011 6:29:19 GMT -5
Were worried about Fracking for Oil because of less than 1100 wells across the nation may have been harmed by poorly executed and unregulated prospecting in areas of the country that have proven they care very little about Mother Nature in the past (PA to be Specific).
Were worried about a few bad wells when almost every former metropolis is disintegrating, self destructing, decaying and unable to eliminate its own waste products. They were products of a time gone past when transportation and communication were all but nonexistent and the cities were where fortunes were being made. Evey single one of those factors have changes yet were longing to revive a system that hasn't worked since Cellphones, the second family car and the internet!
Interesting to note here that any sustainability plan requires us to have much more property per human than we have now in these cities, villages and other tightly packed localities. Just like if you have 300 cows, your gonna need 600 or more acres of land just to dump the poop without scorching our earth and polluting our water to get rid of it.
I do have garbage and recycle pickup, I pay for that just like Uticans pay for blue bags. I have a few acres of land, lots of trees and tons of green waste. I don't put any of it to the curb because my land can absorb it all without negative impact. Actually, it fertilizes and creates more land as I fill and dump ash, leaves, sludge and other waste in areas that are low or steep.
We don't leave a square foot of space for the waste we generate. We are so hung up on our lawns looking perfect, raking every inch, collecting up the dead plant material and putting it to the curb for others to worry about. When our green space is smaller than our green waste, its unsustainable.
That scenario bodes for demolishing most of the old rundown empty structures in our cities and villages. Not just making parking lots and constructing new buildings in their absence, make lots of lawns dotted with trees and greenscapes instead. Less empty buildings means the ones that are left will be worth more and have less of an impact on the land surrounding them. Less is more and more is better in this case. Looks at the trends in the smaller industrial cities, people with money are leaving and few fill their void, most cant afford the blue bags to hold their own waste products, thats why Utica looks like shit most of the time.
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Natures Bounty just like human wonder don't function well or thrive, and certainly rarely flourish when compacted. The tighter things get, the more crime, desperation and decay grow like Poison Ivy. With 100 acres of empty land in this country for every man woman and child, I think we should consider decompressing and soon before its too late.
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Post by clarencebunsen on May 30, 2011 7:17:51 GMT -5
It doesn't take a lot of acreage to eliminate a lot of green waste. I quit bagging my lawn clippings years ago, it's easier on me and better for the lawn. Run the mower over fallen leaves a couple times and they break down pretty quickly. Coffee grounds and veggie peelings can be composted without making a big production.
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Post by dgriffin on May 30, 2011 7:38:12 GMT -5
JG: Sounds like you're arguing for spreading people out across the countryside so that their per-square-foot impact becomes less. Maybe grab a few Cornhillians and plop them down somewhere uphill of Sauquoit. I'm not sure the human race ... as assembled in Utica, at least ... is ready for that. From an economic point of view, not counting urban-aesthetics and plain old survival skills, city dwellers might decline the offer and have to be forced out onto the land of the Bumpkins. These latter folks could well object. And while the Bumpkins can't compete in numbers of on hand Saturday Night Specials, they can hit a target farther away than ten feet with their 30-30's. Even when beered up, which is less of a shooting liability than being coked up. I think you've got a great idea there that makes some arithmetic sense. I just don't see the mobs embracing it. Unless you make it really tempting. How about 100 square miles of land to each applicant? I'll bet Mongolia would be willing to sell some of their Gobi Desert to Utica for resettlement.  |
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Post by dgriffin on May 30, 2011 7:42:02 GMT -5
It doesn't take a lot of acreage to eliminate a lot of green waste. I quit bagging my lawn clippings years ago, it's easier on me and better for the lawn. Run the mower over fallen leaves a couple times and they break down pretty quickly. Coffee grounds and veggie peelings can be composted without making a big production. Twigs, too. My spring clean-up of the lawn consists of picking up sticks too large to be slashed up my my riding tractor. Those left get mowed, eventually (2 more mowings) into smithereens. Yes, the damned mower manufacturers are making the blades thinner! |
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Post by Clipper on May 30, 2011 9:43:28 GMT -5
We are fortunate enough to have hedgerows on two sides of the property, and we are also able to burn brush here. I have a spot up in the far rear reaches of the property where the entire summer's worth of branches, as well as my next door neighbors limbs and branches, is piled all summer, and burned in the fall. I flaunt my burn barrel in Al Gore's face also. I burn our bank statements, bills, personal things and junk mail about once a month. Way up in the back corner of our lot, I have a large pile of leaves, clippings and any plant material that I compost. I seldom use compost, but it is nice to have, and I turn it a few times each summer and add a little lime. The days of planting the large veggie garden and using all available compost are gone forever. The rototiller is in retirement in the garage.
We are fortunate to have brush pick up for larger trees or limbs. We simply have to cut them in 4' sections and call the country garage. They come by with a truck with a hydraulic boom and grabber and snatch it up.
I do the lazy thing with clippings. I mulch, and if they still lay on top of the grass, I wait until they dry out and I go back with the tractor in high gear with the deflector tied up, and blow them out and scatter them.
Rural living is the only way to live. I would not want to live in the city again. I have no desire to sit in my chair with the windows open on a summer eve and listen to my neighbor bitch at his wife, or to their dogs barking.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2011 10:15:52 GMT -5
When I owned my house near Westmoreland I used to leave the grass clippings on the lawn but the neighbors would complain. I only did that because I was to lazy to rake. I miss not having my house. I think instead of a lawn I would put down tar then paint it green.
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Post by JGRobinson on May 30, 2011 11:44:43 GMT -5
Most of those city dwellers at one point had their roots in the country. Theres allot of land, not that far from where there nothing but decay. Lots of older homes that could use some tlc and it doesnt cost that much more to own than rent. If we dont allow substandard housing to be rented, sooner or later there will be no substandard housing to rent.
This will take time it wont happen overnight but slumlords need to go the way of T-Rex, Extinct. The only way our cities will again be inhabitable by all is to get rid of the overgrowth and refuse.
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Post by Clipper on May 30, 2011 11:56:03 GMT -5
"When I owned my house near Westmoreland I used to leave the grass clippings on the lawn but the neighbors would complain. I only did that because I was to lazy to rake."
Well, Alan, I am of the opinion that if a neighbor didn't like the clippings, they were probably welcome to come over and rake them up. Since breaking my back in 1996, and two back surgeries, I am just plain UNABLE to rake.
Being the outspoken SOB that I am, I would have simply told them to MTOFB, and that when their signature was on the check to pay the tax bill for the property, they could tell me how to maintain it.
When summer comes here, and it is in the nineties, with rain about every third day, we have to mow every 4 days, or else the grass gets high and clippings lay on top after mowing. Can't be helped.
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Post by firstamendment on May 30, 2011 14:35:13 GMT -5
Be alot cheaper to use the inmates from the local prisons. They certainly are not doing nothing! yeah. what ever happened to community service? |
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Post by firstamendment on May 30, 2011 14:37:30 GMT -5
When I owned my house near Westmoreland I used to leave the grass clippings on the lawn but the neighbors would complain. I only did that because I was to lazy to rake. I miss not having my house. I think instead of a lawn I would put down tar then paint it green. astro turf. easier to maintain!! |
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Post by dgriffin on May 30, 2011 14:44:04 GMT -5
Most of those city dwellers at one point had their roots in the country. Theres allot of land, not that far from where there nothing but decay. Lots of older homes that could use some tlc and it doesnt cost that much more to own than rent. If we dont allow substandard housing to be rented, sooner or later there will be no substandard housing to rent. This will take time it wont happen overnight but slumlords need to go the way of T-Rex, Extinct. The only way our cities will again be inhabitable by all is to get rid of the overgrowth and refuse. True enough, and if you want them out your way, you can have 'em! Seriously, I think we're dealing with a population that would consider living in the country a near death experience. Not the kind with a bright light at the end of the tunnel. I'm reminded of a drive I took many years ago from Binghamton to Oneonta up the old Route 7. With me was Caleb, a bright young black man from Washington, D.C. with a degree in Marketing from an esteemed Maryland university. I was taking over his sales territory of medium size colleges, having come up from New York City, myself feeling like I'd died and gone to heaven to be back in the country once more. Cal was sure the Lord of Mercy had granted his fervent wish when our company transferred him back to Metro D.C. We lived at opposite ends of an aesthetic, as far as our scenery likes were concerned. He felt at home in crowds. I didn't. When he drove through the countryside he experienced the same unsettled feeling ... sometimes outright fear ... that I would feel driving through his old neighborhood. Neither place was probably all that dangerous, just very different from what each of us had been brought up in. That's the last time I thought anyone would enjoy the wide open spaces of the countryside. |
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Post by firstamendment on May 30, 2011 14:55:11 GMT -5
There are probably other areas on the city payroll that could have been cut before green waste pickup.
Remember a year or two ago when the city decided to start picking up stuff and didn't tell anyone about it? It wasn't until the city DPW was busted did Roefaro come out and say they were doing this for everyone until the end of summer. Haha, busted helping out friends and family.
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