A nightmare on Elm Street
Published on August 14th, 2002
Litter is ongoing problem
BY JAKE PETERSON
STONEHAM, MA - Heading down Elm Street towards Wakefield and looking for a spot to discard an unwanted fast-food wrapper? Do the neighborhood a favor and keep it in your vehicle until you get home. So says one Elm Street resident, Frances McCool who has been battling litter bugs for longer than she cares to remember.
McCool takes pride in her property and would like to see those who traverse her neighborhood to have a little pride in themselves before they decide to throw anything out of their car window on her street.
It has become part of her everyday routine. Going outside in the morning, bending over and picking up the trash thrown into her yard by a passerby that just doesn’t care. For quite some time McCool has taken it upon herself to pick up after those who seem to be etiquette challenged.
“One morning I went out there to pick up the wrappers, cups and bottles that appear just about everyday, and I said to myself, I am going to write a letter about this,” said McCool. That day the debris was too much for McCool to accept, and after putting the bottles and cups in the trash, she put pen in hand and penned her grievance to the tical manner while offering a possible solution. She would like to see signs erected to let those would-be litterbugs, know what the cost for tossing their trash out the window could possibly be.
McCool was sent a letter in regards to her written concerns, from Town Administrator, Dave Berry. In a phone interview McCool quoted the letter, “I have instructed the Department of Public Works to take notice of that area from time to time and to pick up any debris they find,” wrote Berry.
The town administrator also made a request to the police department to make extra patrols in the area in an effort to catch violators. “Unfortunately,
” the letter continued, “as you know, it is hard to catch a person in the act of littering.” Berry said that current by-laws make such action illegal and punishable with a $50 fine. The letter also informed McCool that the Town of Stoneham does not have such signs to erect along Elm Street.
Public Works Director Bob Grover, sitting in for the vacationing Dave Berry, is aware of the problem but unfortunately has no solutions for it. “We cannot put signs up all over town where people throw a coffee cup on the ground,” said Grover. Grover believes that to put up a sign would serve little use because everyone knows it is illegal to litter. He also is suspect that if the town were to put up signs along Elm Street for to appease one resident that such request would be made throughout town by other residents. “Where we have serious excessive dumping problems we put up Board of Health signs,” said Grover. Elm Street does not have as bad of a littering problem as other parts of Stoneham, according to Grover.
Yesterday McCool picked up fast food wrappers, a bag of beer cans and a coffee cup-all part of the daily litter that McCool has to deal with.
“I am throwing my hands up on this,” said McCool who plans on continuing to pick up the trash of those who may have a challenged sense of etiquette. McCool’s neighbor experiences the same disregard for their property, and because they are busy working, McCool picks up their uninvited garbage as well. “I just want the neighborhood to look good.”
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