Citizen Facebook Group Calls for Action Against Littered Streets

A South End resident fed up with trash in the streets is taking action online, running a Facebook group called “Firebrand” that calls upon the city to step up its enforcement of the municipal trash ordinance.

The site, which had eight members on Wednesday, was born out of frustration, said founder Jeanne Stepanova. After attending last month’s Public Works community meeting, she left “with a mission.”

That mission, outlined extensively on the Firebrand page, is to put pressure on the city’s Public Works and Inspectional Services departments to enforce the city’s trash ordinance. According to Stepanova, enforcing the ordinance is the first step to keeping litter off the streets.

“South Bronx is cleaner than my neighborhood,” she said in an interview last week. “In New York, if you violate the ordinance, you get a fine. They’re not playing around like Boston.”

Currently, code enforcement in the city is performed by Inspectional Services employees who traverse city streets looking for violations. This winter, the department issued over 6,000 tickets for violations, according to a department spokesman.

 But Stepanova said manpower in the department is lacking in its ability to actively locate all the violators. She suggested hiring young people with iPhones to walk the streets taking pictures of violations for minimum wage. Residents should not be responsible for reporting incidents, she said.

“We have to start somewhere, we have to be consistent,” she said. “I don’t feel comfortable snitching on my neighbors, especially when the city didn’t do their job educating them on the ordinance.”

City regulations dictate proper bags for waste disposal (2-ply black plastic bags, less than 32 gallons) and the time frame when they can be put out for collection (after 5 p.m. the night before trash day). A pamphlet distributed to new residents in rental units specifies against the use of supermarket bags for disposal.

“Please note that most kitchen bags are too thin and not compliant,” the pamphlet reads.

A 15-page manual on trash and recycling is available in English and Spanish on the city’s website and periodically mailed to residents. The front of the pamphlet, in five languages, provides a number to call “for more information.”

But the information is clearly not getting through to South End residents, Stepanova said. Various shopping bags, some left open, can be seen piled outside on trash day, attracting rodents and other creatures and making it nearly impossible for trash collectors to do their jobs cleanly, Stepanova said.

She recommended raising the $25 fine for non-compliance and ticketing entire multi-family buildings for violations occurring on their property.

“Ticket each resident and make it their responsibility,” she said. “They’re grown-ups.”

Through the Firebrand group, Stepanova hopes to give citizens a chance to vent their frustrations about the issue while getting the attention of the Menino administration by “organizing protests, rallies, awareness campaigns and other peacefully subversive activities.”

At the end of the day, it is the city’s responsibility to enforce its regualtions, she said. 

“All I want them to do is find a way to enforce the ordinance,” she said. “There are just too many people in city government getting too much money and they just can’t manage it.”

Click here to view the Firebrand Facebook page. Click here to download a copy of the city's trash regulations.