City Seems to Backslide on Recycling Services
June 13, 2003
Dear Pecan Press Editor:Early this morning I went out to the alley to throw a last minute piece of garbage in my trash as the garbage truck pulled up. I watched to see how the mechanism picked up the can. The man pushed the cart back and then picked up the two recycle baskets and threw them in. I asked him why they were combining it with the garbage and he told me it was difficult for the recycling truck to get through the alleys, and if I put them out by the curb the recycle would be picked up there.
This concerned me, so I called HPNA Co-President Gary Penn, who told me he had heard from several people with this complaint and had called the city and talked to Willie Rhodes and was told that "they were probably running late that day and wanted to get to lunch." To my knowledge, the neighborhood had not been notified that our recyclables were not being recycled.
When the garbage truck came up the alley between 40th and 41st street, I went over and asked the driver who ordered them to combine the recyclables with the garbage and he told me it was Mr. Pennick. Less than an hour later Mr. Langston Pennick came to my house asking why I was asking the driver my question. We went out front and sat on my patio and discussed this problem.
Mr. Pennick said his schedule was so full on Mondays and Fridays with the brush, trash and recycling collection that there was complaint of them doing overtime, because it took longer in Hyde Park for separate pick-up. He said there was talk about charging Hyde Park residents more money to pick up in the alleys. He also mentioned that the city had purchased smaller trucks to be able to go through the Hyde Park alleys, but he had to use them to go to more remote and distant places, ranches, etc. since there was not much to pick up. I told him if he was using "our" small trucks to pick up in outlying areas they should charge them more, and not us, because the city is using more gas to get there. He thought it would help to change the collection days. I told him I thought we wouldn't mind changing days in order to keep alley pickup.
He also mentioned the shape of the alleys, particularly the rentals, and I told him I thought that problem was to be addressed at the next meeting and that paying someone to clean the alleys might even be an option for us.
He said one of the other problems is that they should give notice to property owners about alley-related problems, but it takes time to go around the front of the house to find the street number and back to write a citation. He suggested it would be helpful if the containers were marked with the
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