OPINION: Bottle and can collecting is more than a nuisance and it’s time to address it
Since announcing my run for City Council, I have met and had lengthy conversations with countless neighbors of mine who live in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach and Bensonhurst and one issue keeps coming up over and over again in every neighborhood.
Until now, no community leader or elected official has addressed it, but it remains perhaps the biggest pet peeve of my neighbors. It’s time to stop pretending that this problem does not exist and time to start a dialogue about the issue.
The bottle and can collecting that has been going on in our neighborhoods is out of hand. This practice is more than a nuisance. It creates a culture of trespassing, dirties streets, subjects homeowners to costly summonses for sanitation violation and it leads to stress and confusion among neighbors.
Nothing seems to have constituents of the 43rd Council District more frustrated, exasperated and ready to “give up” than people trespassing in their yard, going through their garbage and taking recyclables.