Lexington’s proposed garbage policies are great for rats and bad for public health.

Free garbage pickup started as a public health measure to reduce the rat and flea populations that spread disease. Lexington proposes to charge more to anyone with excess garbage, and to sell garbage bags for pickup and disposal of garbage over a set amount. Steel garbage cans were developed to keep the rats out–serving rats lunch in bags is a bad idea.

Charging for excess garbage will result in more garbage on roads, in the woods, and in public trash cans. High taxes at a minimum should assure policies designed to minimize rats and other public health problems; thus, free garbage pickup should be a high priority.

Charles W. Forsberg

Join the Conversation

2 Comments

  1. About half of Massachusetts communities already charge for garbage pickup, including Arlington and Concord. Some towns, like Winchester, don’t provide public garbage pickup at all; you either use a private contractor or bring your trash to the transfer station. Is Winchester a rat-infested hellscape?

    If you don’t want rats at your house, you can use Lexington’s FREE curbside compost service for anything rats can eat. If you’re going to waste your neighbor’s tax money sending food waste to the incinerator, you will pay for the privilege.

  2. This is the only paean to steel trash cans that I’ve heard over the course of this entire discussion. Anyway, I can’t speak to the history of other places, but I don’t believe free trash collection started in Lexington for public health reasons. After all, the town had “free” trash disposal (at the dump) for half a century before curbside pickup was introduced. As best I can tell, the collection service was developed in response to the closure of the dump.

Leave a comment
Commenters must be registered and logged in with a verified email address and REAL FIRST AND LAST NAME. To register for an account visit the registration page for our site. If you already have an account, you can login here or by clicking "My Account" on the upper right hand corner of any page on the site, right above the search icon.

Commenters must use their real first and last name and a real email address.
We do not allow profanity, racism, or misinformation.
We expect civility and good-faith engagement.

We cannot always fact check every comment, verify every name, or debate the finer points of what constitutes civility. We reserve the right to remove any comment we deem inappropriate, and we ask for your patience and understanding if something slips through that may violate our terms.

We are open to a wide range of opinions and perspectives. Criticism and debate are fundamental to community – but so is respect and honesty. Thank you.