Garbage Litter The Trash Rubbish Debris

Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72 wants to clean up the city.

Reeves says he is appalled by the amount of trash that litters Central and Harvard Square on the weekends. Something, says Reeves, needs to be done to keep the city garbage-free.

Trash, dirty streets and litter, say city leaders, lower citizen pride in the city and can hurt local businesses--which no one wants to do in a recession-bound economy

"It's just depressing. It effects everyone," says City Councillor Alice K. Wolf. "Go into Harvard Square about midnight on Saturday night. It looks like a refuse dump."

Both Wolf and Reeves say the litter problem is worst on the weekends in Harvard and Central Square because of the substantial increase of pedestrian and auto traffic. But Reeves maintains this is no excuse for a dirty city.

"It seems to me one of the few basic expectations of municipal government is that it be able to pick up the household garbage regularly, and that the streets be cleaned, most particularly the heavy traffic areas of the city," he says.

The problem of more trash on the weekends is a result of the clean-up schedule set by the Department of Public Works, Reeves says. Crews clean on Friday during the day and on Saturday morning, but not late in the afternoon or at night on Saturday. No city crews clean on Sunday. "Saturday night the paper is there and we do nothing on Sunday ... and Sunday is a shopping day," he says.

A dirty city is not only ugly, Reeves says, but it also hinders the marketing of certain business areas, like Central Square, that are trying to improve their images.

Reeves says Central Square is an area the city is trying to market as one of Cambridge's finest places to dine. But trash and refuse on the streets and sidewalks do not let Central Square businesses "put their best foot for ward," he says.

Reeves says that since he and Central Square business leaders began bringing attention to the litter problem at a recent city council meeting, the area's appearance has improved, at least temporarily.

But on any given day, the square can still become filled with trash, and Reeves wants to be sure that the square stays clean.

Reeves says the city can try to solve the problem by mandating the allocation of funds for weekend cleaning in next year's budget, to be released later this month.

"If one made the point in the budget that one didn't intend to pass a department of public Works budget that didn't include weekend cleaning, the message would be made loud and clear."

Public works has a staff fully capable of dealing with the additional weekend clean-up demands without hiring new personnel or greatly increasing spending, according to Reeves.

Getting the area clean, he adds, would be a boon for businesses and bring money into the city. "In terms of a cost-benefit analysis, if we can get Harvard and Central Square clean at all times Whatsoever, the benefits would be worth it," he says.

But city officials in public works says the reason they cannot clean on the weekend has nothing to do with money.

"If you put people out later on in the day, the square are so crowded with people that you can't make much progress," says William H. Frazier, city supervisor of Sanitation.

The lack of Public Works crews on weekends isn't the only cause of the dirt and litter in the city, according to Frazier. People who litter are equally to blame.

What the city really needs to combat the trash is a new, stronger litter law, Frazier says, And Wolf, at least, agrees with him.

"Unless people are careful and throw their trash in the barrels, there's going to be a continuation of the [current situation]," Wolf says.

As of now there are no plans for a complete revision of the litter law. But Wolf Says the ordinance against illegal posting of paper flyers and advertisements--which often fall down and blow around the squares--will be strengthened and that may alleviate the problem somewhat.

While the most intense scrutiny of the city's upkeep occurs on the weekends, the refuse does not go away during the week even though crews run daily, Reeves says.

But with all the discussion of dirt in the city by councillors and officials, some neighborhood activists say trash is not nearly as dire a problem for them as it is in the urban areas.

No one has complained recently about trash in the streets, says John R. Pitkin of the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Association. Although the streets in the neighborhood might not look as clean as they could, they have not been swept since November, Pitkin says.

"I'm not saying I'm in favor of dirt or anything, but in the residential areas it's not any worse then it's ever been," he says.

While the challenge of keeping the city's main thoroughfares and neighborhoods clean is not an old one, officials say Cambridge still has not yet come up with an adequate solution.

The answer, according to Wolf, is that the city needs "a combination of city government and people to keep it cleaner."