GREENFIELD — The town’s Department of Public Works will not institute a one-sided rubbish pickup program this fall after it received more than 500 survey responses back from residents, who were largely split on the issue.
“The results were 55 percent of the people thought it was the dumbest idea in the world, and then 45 percent of the people thought it was a brilliant idea and very, very smart,” DPW Director Don Ouellette said.
According to Ouellette, one-sided pickup would save the town 30 to 40 percent on fuel, mileage and collection time, in addition to environmental benefits. Major, high volume roads such as High, Main and Federal streets would be exempt from the program.
“It’s not something that we’re going to pursue just yet, but I think we might try next spring to do some kind of a pilot program just so that we can show people that it works, that it’s not as painful as they think it will be,” he said.
Ouellette said the biggest concerns he heard from residents were that irresponsible people might leave their trash and recycling bins on the front lawns of neighbors across the street; the potential for arguments to break out over would be responsible for picking up trash if an animal got into it; and the elderly having difficulty bringing their rubbish bins across the street.
“The remarkable thing about the comments is the age group was 20 to 39 that had that as a significant issue,” Ouellette said. “The elderly, for the most part, had no problem with the one-sided pickup.”
He added that he’s very happy with the responses the DPW received — even the negative ones.
“We wanted to get an honest opinion from what the general feeling was in the community,” he said.