EDITORIAL: Pause in sticker program gives city a chance to re-evaluate trash collection |
Whatever Schenectady officials decide to do in the next few days with the city’s controversial trash sticker program — suspend it, end it, modify it — they’re still going to be left with the problem of how to collect trash, how to keep city streets free of garbage and debris, and how to pay for disposal.
The city’s bulk sticker program, in which residents purchase stickers from the city to place on discarded bulk items like couches and washing machines, has been what many consider a failure.
Not a total failure, but it didn’t fully accomplish what it set out to do.
Because the city didn’t follow the mayor’s original recommendation that the city put a limit on items disposed of in trash bags, city residents figured out that if they put their bulky items in bags, they could avoid the sticker fees.
To get around paying for stickers, some people were discarding their big trash items on other people’s property or dumping in vacant properties.
And because residents could only purchase stickers........