The Neighborhood “Cleanup”

Every summer Salt Lake City runs the Neighborhood Cleanup program. It’s called the Neighborhood Cleanup but it should really be called “The 3 Weeks of the Year That You Are Allowed To Throw All Your Crap On The Side of the Road and No One Can Tell You to Clean It Up.” I HATE the Neighborhood Cleanup.

As pickup truck owners, Joe and I make fairly regular trips to the city dump in order to dispose of anything too large or heavy to put in our regular garbage can. I recognize that it might be hard for some people to do that and so I understand why the city has the Neighborhood Cleanup. The idea is that people can dispose of large items easily and for free. What I do not understand is why people think that means that they can throw their regular trash out in front of their house and ignore it. Residents are allowed to start putting their piles of crap (which is the nicest word I can use on this G-Rated blog) out in front of their house up to 10 days prior to their designated pick up date and then the City usually doesn’t get it pick up until several days after that date, so for 2 – 3 weeks every summer it looks like I’m living in the streets of some 3rd world country without organized trash disposal. I HATE the Neighborhood Cleanup!

There are rules about the cleanup. The postcard sent by the city says things like:

• Do not block traffic, fire hydrants or sidewalks
• Keep piles away from light poles, mailboxes, trees, or other fixed objects
• Pile Size may be one dump truck load of material (apx. 20 ft. long x 5 ft. wide x 5 ft. high)
• Separate green waste from your other cleanup pile
• Tires or Household Hazardous Waste such as paints, oil, flourescent lights, batteries, electronic waste, etc. will NOT be removed.

If people would follow these guidelines then I would probably just dislike the Cleanup. As it is, people show a blatant disregard for all regulations (another thing I HATE).

Instead, this is what really happens:

Like how they have separated the “Electronic Waste” from the green waste?

I’m pretty sure some of that would fit in the garbage can.

This is ok, but I don’t want to know how that happened to the couch.

These people wanted a pile just because everyone else had one.

I don’t even know what to say about this one…where did they have all that stuff?

No parking…unless you are a mattress, an upside-down couch or an empty fridge-pack of lemonade.

This is nice green waste, but I’m pretty sure it’s pushing the 1 dump truck load rule.

In case you want to eat breakfast and open your mail out front. Oh, and then just leave your trash on the couch.

Unidentified furniture items…another television…more trash on the ground…see a pattern?

And all I can say about this one is…wow. Just wow.

I did see a few nice neat piles like this one:

And I like how the throw pillows are arranged here in case you want to have a seat:

But for the most part, the piles just make me sick.

I realize that by driving around my neighborhood with my camera and then posting these pictures I’m taking the chance that one of my neighbors might see their own pile here and get offended…if that’s you I’m sorry. I don’t mean to offend anyone, and I really have no problem with people putting out some old carpet or large furniture. Oh, and if you are offended, DON’T THROW YOUR TRASH IN THE STREET!!!!! Thanks!