By Chris Cassidy
SALEM — It's a pretty good day for picking up trash.
The sun's out, and the roads are clear. And six weeks after new trash rules started to be enforced in Salem, there are finally signs that residents are catching on.
This is trash day in North Salem, where four garbage trucks, two recycling haulers and an army of 11 men are crisscrossing the neighborhood, roaming for refuse.
Last year, the city overhauled its trash rules. Barrels had to be 35 gallons or less. No more than three bags or barrels per household. Recycling became weekly — and mandatory.
But when enforcement started a few days after New Year's and oversized barrels were ticketed and left behind, residents nearly revolted. City Hall reported receiving about 50 phone calls a day from confused and angry homeowners. Some wondered why they should have to spend more money on new barrels.
But Friday morning, as the trash truck rolled up Lee Street, then down Orchard Street, there were promising signs. Most of the trash was neatly placed in regulation-size barrels. Even better, many households' recycling bins outnumbered their garbage bins.
"It's just a big adjustment," said Mark George, the managing agent for Northside Carting, the city's trash contractor. "Having somebody change their everyday routine is difficult."
George's job is to supervise the trucks, make sure they hit each property and respond to calls from dissatisfied residents. At one point, he gets a message from a Nursery Street woman who admits she left her trash in an oversized barrel but promises to buy new ones for next week and asks if he can send the trash truck back to her house anyway.
Within a few minutes, George drives his pickup over to the house and personally loads the bags into the bed himself.
"If they're willing to work with us, we'll do it," George says.
Recycling is up
He drives through another neighborhood with brand-new recycling bins on the sidewalks — a sign, he says, that residents here are just starting to recycle.
"This is exactly what the city is hoping people will do," says George, pointing to a two-family house with three trash barrels and four recycling bins. "There are some people that have completely changed their ways. ... We're getting to the point where people are putting out as much recycling in one week as they were in two weeks."
When residents recycle, the city saves money — an estimated $700,000 to $800,000 a year.
But why the 35-gallon trash limit?
Unlike the recycling trucks, which have mechanical arms capable of lifting hundreds of pounds of paper or glass, the trash collectors have to lift the barrels themselves, which can prove challenging when residents stack piles of bags into a cavernous barrel.
Still, George has seen some creative attempts to skirt the system. Earlier this year, a Symonds Street man fed up with Northside's rejection of his oversized barrel sawed the bin in half. Some residents living on corner lots have tried leaving their multitude of trash on both sides of the property. Others have piled overflowing pyramids of trash bags into regulation-size bins.
The upside
But there are positive stories, as well, like the elderly woman on Appleton Street who hands the trash collectors a bottle of soda each week when they return her empty barrel to her front door. Some even leave water or coolers by the curb on hot days.
"It's not the job everybody grows up wanting to do," George says, "so you can imagine that some days are tougher than others. "
The trash never stops, and neither do the trashmen. George remembers one afternoon collecting garbage in blizzardlike conditions, the truck the only vehicle on the road.
But they've never missed a day, he says.
"When the mailman's not here," he says, "we'll be out here."
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Staff writer Chris Cassidy can be reached at ccassidy@salemnews.com.
