Letter To The Editor: The Town of Colonie takes a step backwards from 3-R plan

To the Editor,

I have been a resident of the Town of Colonie for 76 years and have seen changes and growth most who live here have not. As kids we hunted frogs in the police pond behind the town hall long before the existing town office building was built. The Colonie Police were located in the basement of the white two-story wood framed building and after frog hunting, we walked thru the police station to grab a 5 cent Coke, lots of fond memories.

The Town has always been and still is a great place to live and raise a family with outstanding schools, parks, shopping, emergency services and central to not only Albany, Troy and Schenectady but the Adirondacks, Catskills and the Berkshires.

I was shocked to learn that the Town will no longer pick up yard waste in 32 gal reusable barrels as it has in the past. Decades ago, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation came up with a program to reduce the amount of waste generated, it was called the 3 R’s, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. We can’t Reduce the amount of grass clippings from our lawns or the leaves that fall ever year but we can help the environment by reusing the drums we purchased years ago. Yes, the paper bags are biodegradable but they come at a cost and how many trees have to be cut down to make these bags?

A leaf bag holds 30 gallons of yard waste, 2 gallons less than the 32-gallon Reusable drums and may I mention the drums have easy to grab handles and don’t rip and tear. If you use the paper bags for lawn clippings or leaves you know how difficult it is to fill them compared to the drums. Filling bags with twigs and cut up branches will tear the paper bags and tying branches up at my age, a challenge.

Home owners often use weekends to do their yardwork and if it rains before they get picked up, the paper bags get saturated causing them to get heavy and fall apart when picked up. Town workers do their best to pick up the mess but don’t get it all and the rest gets washed into the Town’s storm drains. The plastic drums don’t fall apart and have lids to keep the grass and leaves dry making them lighter. I know I am not the only one who has spent over $200 on the reusable 32-gallon drums that would have paid for themselves over time, what are we to do with them now?

It’s a sad day for the Town of Colonie to take a step backwards from the States 3-R plan.

Robert Kircher,

Colonie

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