By NEWSROOM Class
The Pine Hills neighborhood has slowly tumbled into a place littered with waste. Red plastic cups, beer boxes, paper plates and grocery bags coat the neighborhood streets.
Despite this, there are multiple ways that the City of Albany strives to keep the Pine Hills neighborhood litter-free. The city sends out garbage collection teams on Wednesdays, particularly in the student part of the neighborhood. However, teams will only pick up trash that is in resident garbage cans.
The city does not have enough resources to support the garbage collection teams’ picking up loose litter, says Eva Petkanas, the Community Relations Coordinator. Within a normal week of garbage collection, the trucks pick up an average of 90 tons of trash.
In addition, there are two types of garbage cleanup events in the neighborhood. The first is a neighborhood cleanup, where the city provides trash pickers and rakes to a specific organization that plans to pick up loose garbage.
“We’ve seen great neighborhood cleanups,” said Petkanas. Spreading the word about these types of events helps keep the neighborhood clean.
The Pine Hills Improvement Group, a subcommittee of the neighborhood association, has been collaborating with the University at Albany for the past year and a half in attempts to educate students on ways to reduce littering.
The group does a bi-weekly cleanup with UAlbany, where they pick up litter along the roads, says Carolyn Keefe, Coordinator for the Pine Hills Improvement Group. Each season, the students perform one big cleaning, she said. On April 18, they held their spring cleanup, which brought around 700-800 volunteers.
According to Keefe, the problem doesn’t originate with people just throwing their garbage on the ground. It lies in the trash and the fact that both animals and people are often searching through the garbage, whether for food or bottles, leaving behind the leftover trash on the ground.
One way that this can be prevented is by separating bottles into recycling bins, as well as adding lids to the cans, she said.
“We request groups who work with immigrants and refugees to tell them not to go through garbage,” Keefe said. Many of the people who go through the cans are associated with these groups.
While littering is an issue, it isn’t always the first problem covered by the Albany Police, as they have other priorities to tend to, Keefe said. Therefore, there is not a lot of enforcement on trashcan rules. Trash receptacles in the Pine Hills should only be visible on the street from 7 p.m. on Tuesday until 5 p.m. on Wednesday, according to Keefe.
“We want the neighborhood to be a vibrant, dynamic community for everybody,” she said. “We are trying to do our part with a small group of community volunteers.”
The city also hosts a household cleanup once a year. Residents of the Pine Hills have the opportunity to purge their properties of any trash they may have, and the city will pick it up. During these cleanups alone, about 140 tons of trash is collected.
Despite the city’s attempts to maintain a clean neighborhood, there are challenges with the location of the Pine Hills. It is difficult to maintain a litter-free neighborhood in the student housing area because students are only living there temporarily.
“It is tricky in the student area. Not everyone feels this is their area to clean up,” said Petkanas.
Gregory Francese, an Albany resident, noticed the litter since he moved to the city about a month ago.
“There should be more enforcement of current policies. Most people don’t like seeing trash all over the place, but some people care more than others,” said Francese.
The city encourages residents to use the “See-Click-Fix” app to report uncleanliness in the neighborhood. Users can report problems using the “illegal/excess trash” option within the app. The city will receive the report and then will send out a supervisor to take care of the problem.
Another resource for residents is utilizing the community trash bins called “Big Bellies.” These silver garbage cans are environmentally friendly, to support a cleaner neighborhood.
The littering that Francese has seen affects the city.
“It hurts the city. It makes our public places look unwelcoming and dangerous. There should be a push to add lids to public trash cans so trash cannot blow out of them,” said Francese.
The people of the neighborhood have not complained about garbage cleanup, or how employees deal with the cans once the trash is picked up. The only complaints filed have been about illegal garbage. This includes people throwing garbage onto and in front of vacant properties.
“Waste pick-up employees do not and are not allowed to throw garbage cans. They are instructed to properly place them back on the street nicely,” says Petkanas.
Researched and reported by Ariana Wilson, Becky Wisniewski, Justin Porreca, Lauren Sears, Lolita Avila and Matthew Woods
