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Citizen complaint of the day: Jack the Bag Ripper haunts the North End

A concerned citizen reports:

I wanted to make you aware that someone has been driving around the north end on trash pickup nights with a truck/van - and ripping up garbage bags and rummaging through the trash to see if there are any salvageable items. This has happened on numerous nights the past few weeks and the amount of trash and debris littered all over the sidewalks and streets is horrific. I also feel for the garbage collectors who have to try and dump these bags that are all torn up with garbage everywhere. I have tried putting my trash out as late as possible (almost midnight) and still woke up this morning to find my bags all torn up and my trash all over the street. I am seeing this on streets all over the North End, including Salem Street, Endicott Street, etc.

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Comments

I hope the city manages to get the culprit to stop, rather than fining the innocent residents whose trash bags were cut open.

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Tickets to all these people who throw there plastic bags of trash on the sidewalk without putting them in trash cans. Not only trash pickers bust open the bags but so don't vermin.
Where's Code Enforcement?

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You do know that this is how Boston handles trash, right?

You do realize that they have multiple pickups in a week because people have no place to store cans or trash, right?

This is why many densely packed European cities have gone to the neighborhood dumpster set up - gets rid of the bags on the sidewalk problem, gets rid of the storage problem.

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The North End is a section of the City of Boston. The City requires all residents to put there trash out in barrels.No section of the City is exempt. Carry on.

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Because you might want to take a look at the city's own trash regs, which say plastic bags of a certain thickness are OK. Carry on.

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Is this guy real? No one in the north end has barrels. You have trash pick up 3x a week for this reason. The only place anyone can "store" is inside their apartment until trash day

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It's twice a week now (Monday and Friday) but they collect recycling on both days as well. Also new are the compost bins by the Nazzaro Center, which helps in creating less trash.

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This is why many densely packed European cities have gone to the neighborhood dumpster set up - gets rid of the bags on the sidewalk problem, gets rid of the storage problem.

This sounds like something to try and promote in Boston. You could probably get people on board by selling the idea to the densest neighborhoods with the worst trashcan problem, start it as a voluntary program (where people are encouraged to use the dumpsters but the city still picks up bins if they see them out). After a few years and the idea has caught on among a majority of the residents in that area, stop picking up the bins altogether.

Some people will complain that a central trash pickup point will encourage illegal dumping, and it will (how do you determine whose TV that is when 150 people use that particular dumpster?), but dealing with that and the increased costs might just be the price to pay in return for streamlining trash collection. Since pickup costs overall will go down with a this model, the increased costs of the city dealing with "special collection items" mixed in with the normal trash may actually balance out.

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Or even raccoons, that seem to be everywhere in the city.

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i dont doubt there are people who would do it, but the report submitter seems unsure as to the vehicle, making me wonder if they ever saw it.

as a former north end resident i can also say i've seen some fat-beaked gulls do some damage on trash day. they are strong. and messy.

that plus the volkswagen sized rats, there are plenty of scavengers who dont put things back in their place.

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As a current North Ender, I believe the only practical solution to thwarting the rats, seagulls, and two-legged scavengers is to require all trash and recyclables to be put out on the mornings of pick-up, not the night before! Moving from 3pick-up days to just twice a week has greatly reduced the amount of time trash is left out on the neighborhood's sidewalks, but clearly from everyone's comments and observations, ripped bags and the resulting litter remains a big problem.

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