{"id":16597,"date":"2024-09-20T06:23:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T10:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=16597"},"modified":"2024-09-20T22:00:54","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T02:00:54","slug":"lavallettes-youth-hope-to-shape-towns-future-sanitation-pickup-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2024\/09\/lavallettes-youth-hope-to-shape-towns-future-sanitation-pickup-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Lavallette’s Youth Hope to Shape Town’s Future Sanitation Pickup Law"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A representative from IPL Global shows off his company\u2019s tipper can (robo-can) for garbage collection, March 2023. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Like nearly every Shore community, Lavallette officials find themselves periodically debating plans to tweak the borough\u2019s sanitation pickup policies to make the community more resistant to wind, rain and \u2013 of course \u2013 hungry gulls ready to litter the streets. Now, the next generation would like its say.<\/p>\n

What began as a civics project for the borough\u2019s Girl Scout troop will get some serious consideration before the town\u2019s Ordinance Committee as soon as next month, when a group of girls will meet with council members to discuss a proposal to prohibit the use of plastic bags left on the street for collection without having been placed in a garbage can first. Under the existing ordinance, residents are not allowed to place white kitchen bags at the curb for pickup since seagulls and other birds can easily rip them open (sending litter blowing through the streets) or they can be taken by the wind. Heavy duty bags, such as contractor bags, may be used and are sometimes the go-to method for part-time homeowners and seniors who find it difficult to carry a garbage can to the street.<\/p>\n

Balancing concerns over cleanliness with the logistics of collecting garbage from a population that swings wildly from day-to-day has long been a challenge faced by Lavallette as well as other beach towns, said Councilwoman Joanne Filippone, who chairs the borough\u2019s ordinance committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur procedure is to take their idea \u2013 and I have invited the girls to join \u2013 to the ordinance committee, and the council will decide what it wants to do,\u201d said Filippone.<\/p>\n

The Scouts\u2019 plan would call for all trash to be placed in receptacles before pickup, and include a public education campaign with flyers reminding residents to \u201cPut a Lid On It!\u201d to keep Lavallette free of litter. Filippone said she was impressed with both the proposal itself and the signage that went along with the it, but even the best ideas are sometimes subject to compromise.<\/p>\n

Lavallette has long debated how to modernize and improve trash pickup. This spring, the borough received its first new garbage trucks in many years with the option to add \u201ctipper\u201d arms<\/a> that would utilize automated cans similar to those used in Toms River and Brick Township. Under that type of system, residents would be required to place cans out on the street before pickup and retrieve them afterward. A manufacturer of the \u201crobo-cans,\u201d as they are sometimes called, presented its products to the council<\/a> earlier this year. In the months since, the idea to automate trash collections has waned given both the cost factor as well as concerns over how cans would be brought out and retrieved by part-time residents.<\/p>\n

\"Seagulls<\/a>

Seagulls targeting a trash can on a New Jersey beach. (Photo: Jackie\/Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

While automation has its supporters, Filippone said there is \u201cno consensus\u201d among council members on proceeding with a plan to spend about $350,000 to purchase the tippers and cans. Some of the borough\u2019s senior citizens have also raised concern over bringing large cans out to the curb and lugging them back after collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cGarbage cans with a lid can be heavy, and with our senior citizen population \u2013 and I\u2019m one of them \u2013 I\u2019m not sure how heavy someone can lift to bring them out to the curb,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of the seniors do use good quality black plastic bags and they sometimes drag them across the stones to get them out to the curb.\u201d<\/p>\n

An alternative would be the require the use of non-automated cans, such as the traditional plastic cans that can be purchased from hardware and big box stores. While that would solve the immediate problem of sea gulls breaking into flimsy bags and spreading trash through the streets, it has its own challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we demand garbage cans and people are here part time, then they\u2019re going to put the cans out on Sunday night \u2013 which is illegal to start with, but we\u2019ll put that aside \u2013 and they\u2019re going to be out there for days,\u201d said Filippone. \u201cThen you\u2019d have the cans, which are unsightly, and if the cans are not clean inside you could have a rodent problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if those concerns are addressed, employee safety also needs to be considered, as council members have expressed previously.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople pack these garbage cans with heavy stuff, and we don\u2019t want our guys trying to pick it up and breaking their backs,\u201d said Filippone.<\/p>\n

The many sides of sanitation pickup concerns in a resort community are not dissimilar to those shared in other Jersey Shore towns as well as beach communities in Florida and the Carolinas where shifting population trends are similar.<\/p>\n

\"Trash<\/a>

Trash bag. (Photo: Erich Ferdinand\/Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Ultimately, Filippone said, the council may look to tighten its current ordinance and increase enforcement of the ban on low-quality kitchen bags being left at the curb. An updated ordinance may include an \u201cinsistence\u201d on the quality of bags that can be placed on the street \u201cperhaps with a proviso that, no matter which type of bags you use, if seagulls break in, you may be fined.\u201d<\/p>\n

The borough\u2019s ordinance committee, which consists of about a dozen residents and officials, is planning its next meeting in the beginning of October and will meet with the Scouts on their plan, while kicking off a discussion on what strategy would best address the issue of litter and cleanliness amidst the unique scenario that Lavallette finds itself in as a resort community.<\/p>\n

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Like nearly every Shore community, Lavallette officials find themselves periodically debating plans to tweak the borough\u2019s sanitation pickup policies to make the community more resistant to wind, rain and \u2013 of course \u2013 hungry gulls ready to litter the streets. Now, the next generation would like its say. What began as a civics project for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[1662,1959,491,2777,29,2389],"class_list":["post-16597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lavallette-government","category-lavallette","tag-automated-garbage-trucks","tag-featured","tag-garbage-bag","tag-garbage-can","tag-lavallette-nj-news","tag-tipper-cans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/189207740_8ee833f4c4_o.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-4jH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}