Plymouth DPW director Bill Coyle is more of a diplomat than I could ever be. When I recently asked him about people who toss trash wherever they please – including appliances, furniture, mattresses, and tires – I figured he’d jump at the opportunity to vent. After all, part of Coyle’s job is fighting the blight on our landscape caused by jerks who can’t be bothered to properly dispose of stuff they no longer want.
But Coyle’s response was calm and measured. Even when I brought up one of the town’s most notorious dumping grounds, Prestige Way. The North Plymouth road – connecting Cherry Street to Wiliam C. Gould Jr. Way – doesn’t get a lot of after-hours traffic, other than drivers going to and from the Amazon distribution center located there. Access is easy and scrutiny slim.
“Prestige Way has been an issue since I’ve been here, which is a little over a year and a half,” Coyle said. Police have increased patrols along the street, he said, and there are plans to install cameras. I’m surprised that was not done long ago – the technology is cheap. (Note to the authorities: We’d be happy to publish screenshots of offenders’ vehicles.)
Earlier this month, I took a walk around the area. My faith in humanity – already wobbly – took another hit. Soiled mattresses looked like white whales stranded along the road’s shoulder. Tattered couches and chairs were randomly perched atop household garbage, as if dropped from the sky by a tornado. A gully was littered with dozens of tires. Old roofing shingles were scattered in the woods.
The mess isn’t limited to Prestige Way. Coyle said at least four other roads are similarly popular spots for dumping. He thought it best not to publicize the locations, but did mention one particularly appalling incident. Last year, someone offloaded about 200 tires. Fortunately, they were removed through the state’s mosquito control program at no cost to the town. (Tires make ideal breeding grounds for the disease-carrying bugs.) It was small victory for the environment in a never-ending war.
On the day we spoke, the DPW was dealing with an abandoned couch off Long Pond Road. It’s a common occurrence. Every time a crew is sent out to clean up after a litterer, workers aren’t doing something else, such as filling potholes or sprucing up parks.
The logic some people use to excuse their bad behavior is, well, irrational. Usually, they complain – anonymously – that it’s too expensive to be responsible. (I wonder how many drive $60,000 pickups to jettison their junk under the cover of darkness?)
Yes, there is a price to pay for being a good citizen and neighbor. It pales in comparison with the desecration of Plymouth’s roads and forests costs.
It’s not hard to do the right thing. You can contact one of the town’s authorized private haulers and recyclers to pick up that moldy refrigerator in the garage. If you’re cleaning out a house, a 30-day permit for the Manomet transfer station on Beaver Dam Road is a bargain – $30. A full year permit costs $190. There are additional fees for some items, but it’s still a deal. Some examples: You’ll pay $15 to get rid of a computer monitor, $75 (plus a weight charge) for a mattress, and $10 for a stove. Furniture fees are determined by weight.
Coyle told me that about 2,300 permits for trash and recycling are typically issued for the transfer station. Another 579 were sold for recycling only.
Homeowners and renters aren’t the only offenders when it comes to improper trash disposal. Unscrupulous contractors and renovation companies are also among the culprits.
“If a company just pops up and it’s small and cheap, if they pull in and the truck looks like it’s on its last leg, I’d be a little concerned with where that material might be going,” Coyle said.
That means you should question the lowball estimate you received for a new roof or siding. “We’ll take care of it” could be code for Prestige Way or some more remote site.
Occasionally, offenders do get caught. A few years back, a contractor decided to offload a dumpster full of old shingles in the woods, Coyle said. The contractor didn’t realize the homeowner had put a bag of household trash in the container – including mail with the home’s address. Police were easily able to figure out the culprit’s identity.
Then there are people who use public trash barrels to get rid of household waste.
“It’s hard to quantify,” Coyle said, “but it is a problem. Some people take advantage of them.”
So what can you do to curb the trash problem? More than you might think.
Registration is now open for the spring household hazardous waste collection day scheduled for April 12 at the DPW facility in Camelot Park. You can get the details here.
Also, Sustainable Plymouth will hold its annual Hometown Cleanup up May 3, “rain or shine.” Details for that event are here. You can join an established garbage-hunting group in your neighborhood, form your own group, or go solo. Participants will be supplied with heavy- duty purple bags to be left at specified drop locations and retrieved by the DPW the next day.
If you’re on a hike and come across old furniture or other items such as motor oil and paint, you can report the find to the town through SeeClickFix.
I’ll leave nips and cigarette butts for another column, and finish this one with a deep cleansing breath.
Mark Pothier can be reached at mark@plymouthindependent.org.