When Should Trash be Placed for Collection?

As president of the Montgomery Village Foundation board, I receive several emails every month on topics ranging from budgetary matters to goose droppings. Lately there is one topic that sticks out beyond all others: trash. Yes it is trash, not only that thrown out along the streets or tossed near various fast foods establishments -- those are actually very few and far between -- it is the trash in our very own neighborhoods. Trash that is placed at the curb over the weekends, when pick-up isn’t until two or three days later. Ranging from boxes to thin white garbage bags. Folks, it is not only unsightly, it is unhealthy as well. Those thin white trash bags are easily torn and broken into by squirrels and other animals, yes even by rats. Most every community including Montgomery County requires that trash not be placed out before 7 p.m. the evening before the scheduled collection day. They also require that such trash be placed in trash receptacles that have lids and will seal tightly so as not to be opened by various animals and birds.

This happens in not only our community, it happens countywide. As I drove in Silver Spring and Chevy Chase over the weekend, what to my wandering eyes should appear, “trash bags at the curb on Saturday afternoon?” I was sure that collection would not have been at least until Monday.

I ask two questions.

Why?

Would it be that difficult to wait until the evening before the day your trash is to be collected?