Letter to the Editor
I recently visited my mother in Martinez, and was frustrated and annoyed at how difficult it is to recycle.
My mother has lived in the Augusta area for many years, and was not aware that she could recycle. Upon inquiring to her waste management company, I was told that she could recycle if she pays extra each month for this service.
In this day and age, it should not be a choice. Everyone should be expected to recycle, and all waste management companies should provide this service and require it. Where I live, it is a free service, and we are admonished if we do not use our recycling bins. Recycling is picked up every other week, and my family puts out three full bins, as well as three or four brown sacks of newspapers.
I also found out that my mother is allowed to fill only one 96-gallon barrel each week to recycle leaves and yard waste. That is a ridiculously inadequate container to dispose of leaves in the fall. I filled that in 10 minutes, and my children and I also filled 15 leaf bags for her, which only made a small dent in the total leaves in the yard.
Why can't residents fill large paper bags (designed for recycling leaves) and have them picked up curbside with their trash? It only needs to be done for a couple of months in late fall/early winter. It will take all winter and spring for her to clear her leaves. It seems like this is a good marketing maneuver for landscaping businesses to make some money, because very few residents can actually get their lawns cleared in a reasonable amount of time.
The Augusta area can and should do better with recycling. There's no excuse!
Nancy Camarote Moriarty, Springfield, Mass.
