Where were the garbage cans?

Community leaders were miffed that Devon Avenue, in the 50th ward, was full of garbage every Monday morning. And that was after city crews had cleaned up the street.

They learned that all of the garbage cans on the street had been removed, by request of Alderman Bernard Stone. The Alderman said that the cans generated garbage. He claimed people drove by, threw garbage toward the cans, and missed. So, garbage littered the street.

He felt that taking away the garbage cans would eliminate the garbage problem.

So, community leaders asked the Department of Streets and Sanitation to install garbage cans with lids, so people would not be able to just drive by and throw garbage toward the cans.

Streets and San people said no. They said it would take too much time to open the lids, lift out the garbage cans, empty them into the garbage truck, put them back in place, and lower the covers.

They were accustomed to just rolling the garbage cans toward the truck, emptying the contents into the truck, and then rolling the cans back to somewhere near where they had been before.

The garbage problem was not solved.