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Mayor and council look for answers to garbage issues
(by Rosa Kasper - Correspondent - October 09, 2008)
Last Wednesday, the Township Council decided to take a hard look at Jefferson’s garbage ordinance. They continue to mull over the implications of banning the practice of putting household garbage on the street the evening before collection day.
“I can’t believe we don’t have receptacles in our ordinance,” Councilman Robert Birmingham said.
Throwing out garbage in easy-to-rip plastic bags is an especially bad practice, Council President Brooke Hardy said. The resulting mess seen in neighborhoods throughout the township is unsanitary and unsightly, and tends to attract hungry animals seeking an easy meal. Crows also are adroit at breaking into plastic bags.
What’s more, aromatic garbage lying out on the street or contained in loose-lidded cans could endanger children by drawing bears to neighbors, Hardy added.
“Everyone in this town ought to imagine they are the parents of a three- or five-year-old child who is walking to the bus stop and risking encountering a bear. I don’t want to see the bears destroyed but I don’t want an innocent child to pay,” Hardy opined.
In an interview last week, Township Administrator James Leach raised a warning flag about changing the ordinance, saying that it could be a real hardship for people, especially the elderly, to have to haul their garbage to the curb before six in the morning, when the garbage trucks begin to circulate.
“During the winter, it is dark in the early mornings, and snow and ice on the ground could make the footing hazardous,” Leach said. “The council will have to make its decision about this, but I just don’t see that changing this ordinance would be popular or right.”
Right now, the township ordinance doesn’t specify the kind or number of containers people are allowed to put out. But Council Vice President Brooke Hardy said that people are allowed to put out two 30-gallon cans at each collection. They also are permitted to put out one larger item at the second collection of the week.
Council President Rick Yocum offered the possibility of changing the ordinance to permit people who use animal-resistant garbage cans to put out their garbage the night before.
A couple of years ago, Volunteers from BEAR Group (Bear Education and Resource Group) came to the council meeting to demonstrate the use of the 30-gallon bear-resistant can.
But the administrator said that he and the mayor had found them “human resistant.”
“We need to look at bags versus receptacles,” said Yocum. “The bears have been here for a while and will be here in the future. A lot of people think it is all right to throw bags out.”
“West Milford has a big bear campaign,” Leach said, and suggested that the council form a committee to look it what West Milford is doing and to try to gauge its success.
This past summer, thanks to a $200,000 grant from the State Department of Environmental Protection, West Milford officials were able to distribute 4,200 cans to homes in section of the town where bears tearing through garbage has been an ongoing problem.
In 2005, Hardyston in nearby Sussex County used funds from a state clean-communities grant to purchase the cans, which were sold to residents at a deep discount.
Township Attorney Lawrence Cohen said that Jefferson should think about a way people could buy the bear-resistant cans at a discount, if the council ultimately decides that using the cans is what the township ought to do.
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