One look along the sidewalks downtown reminds Bill Strauss of a new, not-so-kind nickname he’s heard given to his hometown.
Garbage Can City.
“That’s what people are starting to call us,” Strauss told The Dispatch on Tuesday. “It’s unsightly, it’s unsanitary and it’s just flat nasty. It’s not something to be proud of.”
For the past nine months, Golden Triangle Waste Services, per a contract with the city, has provided each residence a 96-gallon garbage can to place their household waste for pickup. Part of that contract also cut residential pickups in half to once weekly.
While the new way may work well in most parts of the city, Strauss said, downtown is different.
The Central Business District, which encompasses downtown, includes 205 apartments, according to Main Street Columbus Executive Director Barbara Bigelow. The majority of them are in upper floors of buildings that house a business on the ground level.
That leaves business owners and shoppers dealing daily with the mammoth cans in plain sight, said Strauss, who owns the old Ruth’s Department Store building at the corner of Main and Fifth streets that houses Cafe on Main and 13 upper-floor apartments.
Making matters worse, he said, the cans are lime green.
“It’s pretty visible,” Strauss said. “… We’re a tourist town. We don’t need garbage cans on the street.”
Bigelow agrees with Strauss principally, if not more diplomatically.
“To me, they certainly detract from the beauty of our downtown,” she told The Dispatch. “I’ve heard numerous comments from downtown merchants, shoppers and people who attend our events asking if anything can be done. I apologize, because I concur, … and I encourage them to talk with their city councilman or go to City Hall.”
Both Bigelow and Strauss have appealed to city leaders to do something, with Strauss writing an open letter to them this week.
Before the cans arrived last September, residents put their garbage on the curb in tied bags no earlier than the night before pickup. Since the cans have arrived, some of them remain on the curbside, or strewn about the sidewalks, for a day or two, Strauss said.
“Landlocked” properties like Strauss’ — those without a backdoor or direct access to a back alley — must keep the cans in front of their buildings, even if they aren’t on the curb. However, Strauss said cans are now staying long-term in front of buildings with back-alley access, compounding the problem.
Strauss stressed it’s not just an aesthetic issue, either.
Customers are throwing unbagged trash into the cans, which isn’t what they are for. Also, over time, especially in the summer, even well-kept cans get dirty and attract critters.
“I cleaned maggots out of the trash can this morning,” Strauss said Tuesday.
Fines forthcoming
By ordinance, residents must remove their cans from the curb no later than 7 p.m. of their pickup day, Chief Operations Officer Jammie Garrett said. The city is prepared to start fining those who don’t up to $100 per instance, she said, and notices will go out in residential utility bills within the next 30 days.
For downtown, that means cans must be returned to the rear of buildings when possible. For the handful of “landlocked” structures, the cans must be returned to as close to the building as possible.
Enforcement will be tricky, though, because Garrett said pickup in some areas is sometimes a day late.
But Strauss said fines won’t fix the problem and “miss the point.”
“I don’t want people to get fined,” he said. “What we want is a solution to where to put the garbage cans — not have them in the street, not have them stacked in front of the buildings.”
Instead, he wants at least downtown to return to twice a week residential pickup — something still available for businesses there. He also wants the downtown’s green cans gone altogether and residents return to putting trash out on the curb in bags.
“It’s easy to remedy. Just go back to what we were doing,” he said. “I’m willing to pay extra for twice a week.”
Garrett said it may not be that simple.
“Outside of the downtown area, we don’t get a lot of ‘We need to go back to twice a week,’” she said. “For downtown, is it possible? I don’t know. Would it be fair? That’s the bigger question for me.”
Residents aren’t obligated to use the cans, Garrett noted, so they can put their trash out in tied bags instead.
Future options could include discussions on whether residents could choose to surrender their green can or if centralized bins are better options for apartment complexes citywide.
“There are opportunities for these downtown business owners to talk to us about alternatives,” she said.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 30 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
