Actually, I know landlords in Milford who have been fined because their tenants were not putting out their recycling. The tenants had recycling bins, were putting items in them, but the bins were never making it to the curb. One landlord in town had to actually drive to the tenants' building and drag the recycling bin to the curb on the morning of trash/recycle to avoid another fine.

Yes, let's turn everyone into snitches. I don't forsee any problems with that approach.

Police ourselves and our neighbors? I don't like your approach.

Ratting out your neighbors to the recycling police. What could go wrong?

Spelling? Mr Incognito! That is a taste of your usual type of response. No one needs to "rat" on anybody if the government does its job instead of threatening to do its job. To understand self policing you need more social consciousness than the above responders apparently have. To feel free to scofflaw is to challenge your membership in society and to thumb your nose at the golden rule. You also must have deep pockets as you completely miss the point that if you recycle you are paying $750, per ton for your really scoffing neighbor. Screw that neighbor!

Great, screw your neighbor. Perfect operating strategy. You'll get far.

You could live where I live, and have to pay for the trash bags. Which costs me about $7 a month. But it does encourage recycling, which is free...

No carl, no need for you to keep an eye on my recycle bin on trash day. Mind your own garbage. Thanks

I"m ALL for recycling..and I encourage EVERYONE to do so. However, I did indeed get the "letter" you're talking about....I called the board and explained that I have minimal recycling (I eat fresh vegetables not canned, redeem my cans and bottles at the redemption center, securely shred and dispose of paper at my local banks recycling days and re-use the plastic and glass containers instead of throwing them out) . What I do recycle only fills the bins "occasionally", and when it IS full, then I put it out. I was told that is fine, so instead of assuming that because YOU don't see a recycling bin out EACH time, and you don't get the "list of offenders" (cause really WHAT are YOU going to do with that list? show up at my door and demand answers? Publish our names in the paper?) maybe you should assume that some people are doing BETTER things with their "waste". I'm sure there are people who just don't care, and who aren't going to recycle, but how do YOU know the difference? Do you really think those people who don't recycle are going to pay the "fine" you so desperately want levied on them? Is it really going to make up the $750.00 "difference" you're claiming?

No need to pick on the board of health for "recycling scofflaws".

They're doing a pretty good job considering what they're up against on the other fronts in this town that are WAY more important.

I think if it is that big of an issue with people not recycling, they should enforce a fee for those who don't or go to pay as you throw bags. We had those in our old town and people cut way down from 5 bags of trash a week to 1 or 2. I see a lot of people put out 4+ bags a week here of trash and wonder how they can possibly produce that much garbage.

Hey, look at what is for sale in stores! The packaging on most food items are more expensive that the contents! It is good that local retailers are recycling TV sets. Most folks apparently don't realize that if a TV sits in your front yard for several months, it ain't going anywhere. I would take them, as I take everything else of metal. But you cannot deal with the tube. It contains poison gas and huge amounts of lead and takes a closed system to dispose. All manufacturers who produce this waste should be made to pay for claen-up, especially paper/plastic polluters like McDonalds. The same as we do on SOME plastic bottlers.

I recycled much more when I lived in Woonsocket. They have those huge barrels that you can roll to the curb, you didn't have to store it in your house in a little bin, it was just easier and took up less living space. And the pick up cycle was easy... blue one week, green the next. If you forgot you looked at your neighbor. What REALLY forced me to do it though... you had one trash barrell. You HAD to recycle or you didn't have room for your trash. It took a few weeks of bags being left on the curb and some fines, but within a month, my neighborhood had only two barrells per family out... one trash, one recycling. I wish Milford would do that. I only use one barrell still, I just do as some of you do, return cans and bottles and try to buy food and items with little packaging. We burn our burnable paper/cardboard.

Carl, I'm sorry to say that you really aren't making much sense. How did we go from recycling to new athletic fields? I pay my taxes at the SAME RATE as everyone else, how the town determines those funds are used is decided by the finance commitee and town meeting. If you haven't noticed this town is one of the most fiscally stable towns in the area, so i'm NOT going to complain about my taxes, and if I'm paying a little more per year for the services of recycling and waste removal so be it. If i have a problem with how the town is spending my tax dollars, I don't really blog, I go to my town meeting member or selectman to have my voice heard. No, I do not HAVE to defend the board of health but I'm going to. Why? because they're working pretty damn hard trying to corral all the other issues in this town like illegal contractor yards, overcrowding in housing units, and actual health code violations than lambasting them for "recycling" fines.

Back to recycling-I'm always going to have things that are going to go in the trash. I have an 18month old, so there are always things like diapers (because I"m sorry, I'm not using cloth diapers-I just don't have time), and used napkins, tissues and paper towels, but I have a LOT LESS than the guy next to me so if I only put mine out occasionally I don't really see the problem. It's not really affecting your bottom line at all. BTW You wanna explain how "If you cook, the more you can recycle."?

The point is being missed. The failure to enforce laws of all kinds is a major problem in the entire world. You must be locally focused. If a fee or fine is enacted, which it has been in the press to be effective it must be enforced. We don't and can't afford a policeman on every corner nor do we want one. So, for things to work the way we want for the benefit of all, the enforcement takes the form of fines and fees. .

Since you are sharing confidences, I raised 4 children and b we never used a paper diaper. Our children never had rashes and I was satisfied that washing the carp out was a more firendly act to me neighbors. If you cannot find the time to do that, you can still avoid paper by using a disper service. Some must still exist and they are more eco friendly and I will say much cheaper. Remember, every act will have a reaction and none of this is about you. It is about everyone.
cont.

Sorry, but I beg to differ. The grass football field was a disaster. It was in such poor shape that every player was at risk every time he stepped on the field. One opposing coach went so far, after his star player was seriously injured, to say that he would never bring his team to the field again.

And talk about disease, the new turf field is a huge improvement over the goose-poop covered fields the lacrosse teams used previously.

And I'd be interested in learning where you get the data to support your claim of a "breeding ground of wierd new bacteria?" This generation of turf fields has been in wide use for at least 10 years, and I've never encountered anything statistically or anecdoctally that would support such an allegation.

The natural turf was not cared for properly. Sort of like the Health dept shirking of duty. That opposing coach will also complain about the abrasions and joint damage the next time he comes to Milford or any where else that he takes his team. This is an apocryphal or anectdotal comment. In order to establish evidence, you need a preponderance of proven incidents.

Will the geese not poop on the pretend stuff, even from the sky? The rats will burrow beneath it and you will not know it. The dogs, squirrels, robins, cats and people will poop on it as well. If it were natural, those poops would be recycled and become natrural, non-polluting fertilizer. People already poop in the concession stand, if you haven't noticed!
The data on the bacteria was widely publicized when the TC was rubber stamping the field. I hate to use your tech, but go one line and type in "turf" and you will get the biological and incidental sicknesses that this turf causes.
Here is an analogy for you: this field is as useful and necessary as Miltt Romney's car elevator and inspired by the same type of uninvolved attitude we have become so used to.

Call the coach yourself, Carl, and confirm. It was the head coach of Franklin High School. This is no secrect. By the way, Franklin has a Turf field.

Well, you may relish having your child rolling around in fields full of excrement ("natural fertilizer), but I feel safe in saying that for the rest of us, we're happy to have the turf field as a safer, more hygenic alternative.

You're getting pretty close to tinfoil hat territory, Carl.

Who the coach is, or was, is irrelevant. Especially, when it is franklin's coach.

Next: your replies never are cogent. What is this about my a children? Are you okay?

My entry was about the "boondogle", about "rubberstamping" about failing arithmetic, and about corruption in Town expenditures. To which you have a "tin foil" comment. Do you actually read everything to which you are replying? Would you like to have a face to face? Exactly what is your presence here? Go away. You have added nothing to any blog or issue to which you reply. I bet that you like Ted Nugent.

Its 2012. Everyone knows we HAVE to recycle, there are no other options. We cant keep burying our trash. If people dont care enough about the future generations or anyone else, than the town is going to have to force them to do it.

Before I ratted out my neighbor, I would have a discussion with them on why they were not recycling and see if I could help them. If they just didnt care, I would make that phone call in a heart beat!

Thanks for your input. In my case, the preliminary events have taken place over several years. The Health Board has sent letters. However, that is as far as they go. Sort of like when they were in-charge of junk cars they never enforced that law or levied a fine. My point is that letters are not a fine. A fine is painful as in speeding fines. This Board does not have, for some reason, the urgency to solve the problem and they have a 40 year history with me of intransigence in enforcing Town by-laws, a matter brought up many times to the Selectmen. One could ask, is not enforcing certain laws a profit for this body? Since we do not seem to have a proactive select committee ( we need a town executive and open town meeting instead) what is left to do? As eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, I intend to keep my eyeballs peeled.
and make noise.

Carl-I'm not sure if you're simply trying to sound "intelligent" or if you're simply ignorant when it comes to the use of the English language, but trying to "sift through" your replies for actual statements or facts is pretty time consuming if you simply state your ideas instead of hyping them up with "thesaurus words" (as I call them) you might garner more support.

i'm still not sure how you're jumping to the fields. I personally don't have a problem with them. Did they cost money to put in? Yup. Did we have the funds to pay for it? Yup Is it supposed to be better "long term"? Yup. Is it better for the athletes to NOT play on a broken down, horrible field(s)? Yup. So lets get BACK to your actual post topic-RECYCLING.

If you're so upset with how the board has been functioning for the last 40 years(!) then why haven't you run for a position on the board, and if not that position, run to be a town meeting member?

The Board of Health sends letters first. This gives the "offender" time to "remedy the situation", if the situation isn't remedied or gets worse, THEN they levy a fine or fee. I know the police hand out "warnings" all the time, and you're not here railing against them for the same thing?? (and generally the people who get the "warnings" are driving recklessly with a large, potentially deadly weapon known as a vehicle).
They get warned to stop doing "X", they do "X" again, they get a ticket with a fine. Why is that such a horrible system?

(cont)

So...You're still not making sense when it comes to "If you cook, the more you can recycle."?" unless of course you are trying to say that I'm recycling more by NOT eating out? or if you're referring to the fact that i have more to "compost" and therefore LESS to throw away (in a round about way a form of recycling"

I'm glad you think that diaper services are "Less Expensive" and more "neighbor friendly" but they are not(at least not here in this area, maybe closer to Boston or Providence). I would have no problem with washing crap out of diapers and re-using cloth but like a LOT of moms I simply don't have the time or resources to do it. Another thing that you don't seem to understand is that most of the "diaper services" use WAY MORE water,and power than I would washing the diapers, and the solvents they use are NOT environmentally (or baby) friendly (I'm sure somewhere you can find an "eco-friendly" service, but again, it comes down to most families can't afford forty dollars a WEEK to diaper a child(using a service) vs. the forty dollars it costs to put a baby in diapers for a MONTH.) PS.my kid doesn't get rashes either...so I guess it's not the "paper".

What it comes down to is this. The Board of Health is doing a LOT to keep this town, healthy and safe. Recycling as far as I'm concerned is on the low end of the Totem Pole when it comes to priorities. Worry about code violations, contractor yards, hoarders, and overcrowded living spaces, FIRST please.

Again, a lot of stuff. Just a few comments If you eat out instead of in, how do you know what happens to your garbage? There is no recycling required in commercial places. The only thing they do is to sell their grease and if a local pig farm is near, maybe their garbage. Just go behind the restaurant to see how much plastic, paper and container pollution it causes. Fast Food is super fast polution of the environment and of your body. There should be a nickle deposit on every disposable item that McDonalds forces on you. Do you take that home and put it into a bin? I will skip the diapers as you have classic excuses. Do you have a husband? What is he doing about this issue?

You seem really mostly self absorbed in your arguments in that it is all about your limitations of time and money. If these are so pressing, perhaps you should reconsider what you are bringing into the world to begin with!

As far as the excellence of the board, you harp on really unknowns like hoarders, overcrowding living spaces and contractor yards. What things are a "lot"? Those last items seem more like a laundry list of really picayune stuff. Hoarding? Is that a big issue? I have hoarders near me and you can't get into their houses. But, who cares? Who would want to? As long as the hoard stays inside and doesn't get into the eco-system, who can object? Maybe the heirs who will need several dumptsers when the hoarder dies?