Here's a friendly message to the city of Longview

[Bridget_Burke]

@Max_Torque

…(a) All residential garbage placed for collection must be contained in bags only. All such bags placed for collection shall be securely tied or otherwise fastened or closed so as to prevent spillage or entry by vectors and vermin. Residential rubbish may be placed for collection in bags or bundles. Brush, tree trimmings and limbs shall be properly bundled and in no case may the diameter of said limbs exceed three inches when placed for collection. Residential sanitation customers are expressly prohibited from using cans, boxes, carts, or cages to contain refuse placed for collection…

In Houston, we have big wheeled cans with lids, designed for mechanical pickup by specially equipped trucks. They are pretty secure & we’re allowed to put them out after 6PM the previous evening. Our garbage day is Monday, when I leave for work extra early. So I try to avoid dragging the noisy can down the driveway while everybody else is still asleep–& hoping to stay asleep. (Can you hope while sleeping?)

Anyway: Sounds like the Great City of Longview needs to find a more sanitary way of handling garbage. Instead of leaving fragile bags out for even a few hours in the hot Texas sun, vulnerable to hungry dogs or recyclers looking for aluminum. Or offer the OP a dispensation since he bothers to use a can. Except that’s apparently illegal, too–although the City seems to be ignoring that bit…

[The_Tao_s_Revenge]

@Max_Torque

Whadaya know, Longview’s municipal code is online. Here, apparently, is the relevant section:

Emphasis added. Looks pretty clear to me. And really, if you’re required to set out bags only (no cans, according to section (a) above), you’d want to do it as close to pickup time as possible, or else you attract all manner of undesirable creatures.

Wow what a fucking stupid law. Only total morons could support that. What if you have to be to work on trash day between 5 am and whenever they pick it up? What if you work the late shift? You just supposed to let it pile up?

Bad law. Written by tools, for complete tools.

[snailboy]

@Max_Torque

Whadaya know, Longview’s municipal code is online. Here, apparently, is the relevant section:

Emphasis added. Looks pretty clear to me. And really, if you’re required to set out bags only (no cans, according to section (a) above), you’d want to do it as close to pickup time as possible, or else you attract all manner of undesirable creatures.

I’m glad you found that. I’d like to look through the codes for other dumb laws. Also, they didn’t say on the form that the earliest time is 5:00 AM. That’s absurd. As has been mentioned, some people aren’t even home between then and pickup. I have to be at work at 6:00, so I narrowly make it. (I can’t be bothered to drag the trash out at 5:30 though.)

@Malthus

Can you put the bags in a garbage can, and set that out the night before?

Apparently they don’t mind it being in a can. That’s how mine has always been and they didn’t mention that in the letter. It has to be bagged in the trash can though.

@emmaliminal

You people oughtta count your blessings! We don’t even HAVE trash pickup in my town. We have to haul it all to the dump ourselves, and it’s uphill both ways.*

• for part of the drive

That’s how my hometown was. There were two days a week that you could take your trash to the dump. Of course it’s not a town of 73,311 people; it’s a town of 752 people. When I was a kid, my grandparents would burn their trash in a barrel.

[Andy_L]

@Claire_Beauchamp

P.S. You have trash pickup TWICE per week? faint I’ve never lived anywhere where it wasn’t once per week. I’m lucky to have recycling pickup, but that’s only once per MONTH, and not everyone in the county has it at all. Count yer blessings.

In the early 90s my county had trash pickup in my neighborhood Monday morning and Thursday morning, and recycling pickup on Thursday as well. The Thursday pickup of trash went away after a few years.

More on-topic - the rule is that trashcans/recycling bins are permitted at the curb Sunday night and Wednesday night “after 7PM or after dark, whichever comes first”.

[mswas]

@Max_Torque

Whadaya know, Longview’s municipal code is online. Here, apparently, is the relevant section:

Emphasis added. Looks pretty clear to me. And really, if you’re required to set out bags only (no cans, according to section (a) above), you’d want to do it as close to pickup time as possible, or else you attract all manner of undesirable creatures.

That’s fucking mean to not let people put it out the night before.

I need to look into retarded codes like that if I ever move to suckburbia.

[Frank]

I’ve got to admit, when this thread started, I assumed the OP was just a whiner. After reading the Longview ordinances, I think my first impression was mistaken.

Fucking weird. Did anyone read those ordinances to see if a normal person with common sense (including city employees) could understand them?

[Sunspace]

@Claire_Beauchamp

P.S. You have trash pickup TWICE per week? faint I’ve never lived anywhere where it wasn’t once per week. I’m lucky to have recycling pickup, but that’s only once per MONTH, and not everyone in the county has it at all. Count yer blessings.

In Toronto, organic waste is collected from single-family residences once a week in a green bin. It is composted. Other recycling is collected once every two weeks using a blue bin, and the remaining garbage is collected every two weeks on the alternate day using a wheelie bin (and bags with tags costing $3.10 each if there’s extra).

Apartment buildings and businesses have other arrangements. Me, I trudge recyclables out to a row of big wheelie bins, and the garbage goes to a dumpster. We do not have city organics pickup in my building yet, so I compost it myself.

The city bylaw states that

An owner who receives services during a daytime collection period shall ensure
that: [Amended 2003-05-23 by By-law No. 443-2003]
(1) Garbage, recyclable materials, organic materials and yard waste are set out at
the collection point no earlier than 8:00 p.m. on the day before collection and
no later than 7:00 a.m. on the day of collection; and
(2) Empty regulation containers and uncollected garbage, recyclable materials,
organic materials and yard waste are removed from the collection point no
later than 10:00 p.m. on the day of collection.

link (PDF).

The goal is to divert 70% of waste from the landfill by 2010. We were trucking our garbage 600 km to a landfill in Michigan, a situation that could not last. Hence the emphasis on reduction, reuse, and recycling. The City of Toronto’s page about recycling and garbage pickup for single-family homes.

[horsetech]

@Miller

Why? You selling?

Naw, he’s looking to buy.

To the OP, fuck 'em, and fuck your hard-assed nosy (presumed) neighbor while we’re at it. I can’t believe they don’t use cans/bins but they’re getting on your case about putting it out the night before – are bright white lumps of garbage more attractive than neutral-colored, tidy-looking receptacles, anyway?

[Bookkeeper]

Our local garbage rules say “Put garbage at the curb any time after 6 p.m. the evening prior to your collection day and no later than 7 a.m. on your collection day. Bags or cans should be placed on the ground as close as possible to the roadway, but not on the sidewalk, traveled roadway or on top of snow banks.” Very sensible, especially as they mean the 7 a.m. bit - we frequently have the compost collection truck come by about 7:15. Cans are pretty much a requirement for anything that would attract racoons, skunks, etc., if you don’t want your garbage all over the lawn in the morning.

Longview seems to have the same sort of petty control tyrants that normally appear in HOA threads.

[Gfactor]

@Gukumatz

Well, you sound like a real cunt. Don’t post without reading for comprehension, it’s not that hard, buddy.

A friendly reminder:

@Restricted language in the Pit

The following expressions should not be directed at other posters.

cunt and variants, e.g., cuntlapper

Restricted language in the Pit - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board

No warning issued.
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[SteveG1]

@neuroman

My immediate thought. He need not have pissed someone off though. All it takes is one jackass with too much time on his or her hands. In my experience, these jackasses are frequently retired people.

That was my experience too. You don’t have to do a single thing, they just decide to make someone (this time it’s you) miserable, and they don’t need a reason.
I had a neighbor like that. A real pain in the ass. She simply disappeared. maybe she went to an old folk’s home, maybe she went to a nut house, maybe she died.

Whatever, good riddance.

[Shodan]

Maybe it’s the municipal equivalent of a speed trap - the city is looking to raise some money via fines.

That having been said, thank God I don’t have to get up at 5:00 in the blessed AM to put my trash out. I have enough trouble remembering which day is recycling.

Regards,
Shodan

[DSYoungEsq]

We are recycling days now? Damn, I wish I had known. I would have recycled Friday, February 13 of this year… :smack:

As for the ordinance, that’s just stupid. Someone decides it is a good idea not to have the garbage in cans (makes it easier just to toss bags into the back of the truck, rather than dumping god knows what out of a can), then someone realizes that bags are easily broken open by nighttime animals, so the solution isn’t: put it back in cans. NO, that’s too simple. The solution is to say you can’t put it out until the morning. Stupid, for a number of already mentioned reasons.

[snailboy]

I was looking at the Longview ordinances on that site that Max Torque linked and it says that if you refuse or are unable to pay your fines, then you have to sit a day in jail for every $5 you owe. $5 per day?! That’s absurd! Most county jails give you $50 to 100 per day on traffic tickets and the like. I want to think I’m reading it wrong, but it seems pretty clear. So someone who got a minor $50 citation would have to spend 10 days in jail to pay that off. God forbid it be your fifth violation, you could spend over a year in jail! I guess they think people who don’t take their trash to the curb at the right time are about on equal terms with child molesters.

Edit: That information is found in section 1-5-5:

(5) Credit against fine and cost. Each prisoner shall receive credit against his fine and costs as follows:

 a.     for each day he or she remains in jail, $5.00.

 b.     for each day a prisoner works on streets, bridges or other public property, an additional $2.00 per day.

 c.     for each day the prisoner serves as a trustee, an additional $1.00 per day.

It is the intention of this subsection to provide that a prisoner may work off as much as $7.00 per day on his fine, if working on streets and bridges, $6.00 per day on other work, and receive a minimum credit of $5.00 per day if he is unable to work.

[Yllaria]

Rereading your statute, I’m amazed at this bit:

*Not more than **20 total units of bags and bundles of refuse *will be collected by the city sanitation department for each dwelling unit on each day of collection for such unit.

Damn. We’re given ten stickers a year. What are the stickers for? Well, if you have more trash or recycling or yard waste than can fit in the trash or recycling or yard waste bin, you can bag it and put it out with a tag on it. If you run out of stickers, you have to buy more. We’re allowed fewer extra bags a year than you’re allowed twice a week.