A reader sent in these shots of Church Avenue on Saturday afternoon. Last year, the Department of Sanitation admitted it had ended its regular pick-ups of trash on commercial strips, only emptying trash from public cans when trucks are out for residential runs. That means when people illegally dump household trash in these public cans, the mess just piles up.
Across Coney Island Avenue, residents near Foster Avenue convinced the city to remove public trash cans from that street this past fall, and many feel it's helped the garbage problem. Last week, Park Slope installed new solar-powered trash compactor cans on 5th Avenue, which can accommodate more trash between pick-ups.
With city budgets tightening left and right, it doesn't seem that trash collection will return to more regular pick-ups anytime soon. Church Avenue may require a clever solution, depending on what the community wants--and hopefully something helps the situation soon, before we're walking through festering, overflowing trash cans in the dead of summer.
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