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County makes it hard to recycle

I awoke on a Friday morning at 5:30 to the sounds of the Waste Management Pasco garbage truck picking up my recycling. My recycling was supposed to be picked up on Thursday, and as a new resident of Pasco County, I dutifully put out my recycling in the correct blue bags on the Wednesday evening before pickup. This is my first time putting out recycling, and I'm less than impressed with Waste Management Pasco's solution to recycling. In fact, I am enraged for several reasons:

My recycling, collected over the past month and a half, was not picked up as it should have been, even after I called Waste Management Pasco during the afternoon of the pickup day to ensure that it would be.

The garbage men, who should recognize the difference between garbage and recycling - not only because of the lightness of the load but also the bright blue bags - threw away eight to 10 bags of recycling.

The recycling program here makes it hard to recycle. Recycling is picked up only once every two weeks. My company does not pick up recycling on a normal garbage pickup day, making it difficult to remember when to put it out. Additionally, people have to purchase different garbage bags in order to recycle. When you make recycling hard, people do not recycle!

I just moved here from Gainesville, where recycling is about as easy as it comes. Each household is supplied with a container called big blue. They also are supplied with an orange container. In the blue container you can place metal, glass and plastic; in the orange container, you can place newspapers, magazines, paper grocery bags and other paper products. You put these containers outside for pickup each time you put out your normal trash. The pickup schedule and the easy-to-use containers make recycling so easy that you rarely see a trashcan not accompanied by big blue. Interestingly enough, Waste Management also operates in Gainesville.

Recycling is extremely important, and it makes me sick and angry to think that I have moved to a county whose priorities are askew. Get your recycling act together, Pasco County!

Intersection of U.S. 98 and 301 needs traffic light to make it safe

How could one person or a committee justify making a decision to install a traffic light at Kossik Road and U.S. 301 before installing one at U.S. 98 and U.S. 301, a short distance south of Clinton Avenue?

The intersection is very dangerous, and probably 75 percent of the people who use it are senior citizens.

A few years back, a new light was installed at Centennial Road and U.S. 301. It was needed for the safety of schoolchildren, parents and school buses.

The powers that be showed they were concerned about schoolchildren. How about the seniors and everyone else who uses this extremely dangerous intersection?

[Last modified February 27, 2006, 02:15:26]