Of course, if you're a good citizen and live in a skinny house on a skinny lot, as the Portland planners want you to, the limit on "farther from your house" may be about three feet.

Master Recyclers? I need some Tums.

This says it all: "We like less pickup to save the environment but special rules should be made for us." Lakecia Banks and her mother, Danetta own Smiling Faces, an in-home daycare on N.E. Killingsworth Street. Banks says they were in favor of the move to two-week garbage pickup, which they hope will be good for the environment. However, they are concerned about odor and pests.

“It has been a real problem,” Banks says. “We’re having dirty diapers sit around for two weeks, which attracts everything and the smell is horrendous.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she says. “It would be nice if they came up with special rules for daycares and schools, and if they would take our diapers away every week

Man, that Lauren sounds like another 30-something know-it-all chick. Portland government loves to hire them. “It’s important to keep the lid closed and you might have to move your bin farther from your house – maybe to the far side of your garage. In the summer, keeping the bin in a shady place will help reduce the smell.”

Definitely a 30-something know-it-all chick.

By contrast, there's Dee Baker, heading up the story, who comes across as a level-headed lady with legitimate issues relating to the latest CoPo fiat. Well, at least until you see the photo: she's blatantly keeping a stash of firewood under shelter, which can only mean that she's going to burn it and release pollutants into the atmosphere and poison us all! She hates the planet!

Quick, Robin! To the Huckmobile!

Well, I can get a falcon to keep the seagulls away from my home; What can I get to keep Sam and his brethren away from City Hall?

I still don't understand why or how, on the list of things that Portland could improve by citizen action, this was designated the next most important one. Set aside compliance issues, our most consequential environmental problem is the same as it has been for decades -- hot season air pollution. We should be on electric vehicles like a drunken frat boy on a busty freshman. We should have nothing but zero-emission busses and plenty of them.

I don't know where collective composting of food scraps would be on the list, but it is hard for me to imagine that it would be in the top 10 yet. Would a campaign to improve control of littering have it? I'd bet on it.

There might be an argument for running human excrement through the sewer system.

I'm tempted to move my can 5.6 miles WSW of my house.

I have written about this before and asked how this could be approved of by our Multnomah County Health Department? I believe they should step up and put a stop to this before the summer heat and problems mount.

This has more to do with potential health problems than changing our attitude and behaviors!

It might be time to call the Multnomah County....
and when these city promoters come to the door, tell them we are calling and reporting to the County Health Department.

Who is making the money on this?...at the expense of the health of our community?
Does the County Health Department exist anymore, or did they run out of money?

...Move your garbage can further from your house. And be sure it's in the shade.

Not much shade left in areas filled with ghetto housing and ubiquitous infill. Trees that provide shade are cut to make room for developments in our city. The little street trees planted instead do not provide adequate shade.

Furthermore, they want us to do more walking in the city....good to walk when the streets are filled with stench?

This may end up being a good business for selling odor/safety masks!

The further away you move your garbage from your house, the closer you move it to your neighbors and vice a versa.

Portland will be just like Ecuador soon...crooked politicians, slum housing, mud alleys for streets, backyard privies, chickens, outdoor farmers' markets, trash every place, and "cholo taxis" (3 wheeled motorcycles wIth a back seat).
Wait...we have all of those except for the cholo taxis.

Move the garbage farther away from the house? Why didn't I think of that!

I'm guessing many garbage cans will just be left curbside come summertime to displace the stench. Can you get a ticket for that?

Vote for Scott Fernandez for mayor. He has common sense and won't believe that a select survey shows a majority of Portlanders like our garbage program.

The survey has no statistical basis that a good statistician would ever put their name on. But an agenda politician would-they even paid for the suspect survey. Well, we taxpayers paid.

Fernandez is a potentially attractive candidate.

Unfortunately, as of 6:14 PM on 19 February, he hasn't actually filed for the position.

http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?c=55607&a=363583

If I read the election calendar, Mr. Fernandez, and others, have until 6 March.

The announcement of the new trash system was the last straw for me. Sure enough, the slops bucket (still pretty new) and yard debris bin already smelled bad when the weather was cold.

Handling the sloppy mess is disgusting (and surely a microbe expressway), regardless of the season. I can only imagine how the public health risks will increase come summertime.

I sincerely hope that Kerry Tomlinson points her public health hidden camera at the crap pails of City agencies, and the homes of the grandees who crammed this insane system down our throats.

Moving the garbage can further from my house would just make it easier for my neighbors to dump their overflow trash into my can. Instead, I prefer to put my trash in a brown paper bag (made especially easy now that the plastic bag ban is in effect) and dump the bag in the compost bin. If the city is going to insist that my level of service has not decreased, then I'm going to insist that I still get weekly trash pickups in one form or another.

Our neighborhood up near St. Johns recently got a huge influx of seagulls (strangely, right after mandatory composting went into effect). I woke up one morning and thought I was at the beach. And the stench is starting to settle in, about every other house in the area has a overflowing trash can that wreaks of sustainable green goodness. Put a seagull on it!

Guess I can't blame people for putting "regular" trash into the compost bin...
not good to do however...and I was really concerned that this would happen.

So now just about anything then will end up in compost and then spread where?? back into our soil where food is grown?

This needs to stop before major problems, mix ups in our soil that shouldn't be...

Please, have some who are adults step in and change this before too late!

Portland Native,
Good to see your comments again!
....mud alleys for streets,...

http://blog.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhall/2012/01/portland_would_eliminate_road.html
The Portland Bureau of Transportation, preparing to cut $16 million from its upcoming budget, will stop major repaving projects for the next five years under a new draft budget.

Nonny Mouse, I registered with the Secretary of State for the office of mayor in January. I will be filing with Auditor this week. I have already committed to restoring once a week garbage collection.

Grr. God forbid you forget what week it is and only bring out the compost. It's been almost a month since my trash got picked up. Tomorrow (finally), I get to haul it out, overflowing, to the street.

I will vote for you, Scott Fernandez. And I don't even know your political leanings!

Vote for Scott!

If that doesn't work, Vote with your Feet!

It would at least help if the trash pickup was every other week. That would be easier to remember and cut down on some of the buildup. One way to cut down on the smell is use white vinegar - put those smelly diapers and other stinky items in a plastic bag and pour some vinegar in.

My concern is that the rats are coming - well at least more of them. I have had rats coming to check out my compost long before the mayor's trash plan started. Until now, they have come and I get rid of them then in a while they come back. My concern is that this trash program is going to bring a steady stream. I quit feeding the squirrels because the rats went to the feeders at night and chewed off the wood lids and the plastic front panels. So far my squirrel deterrent on my bird feeder seems to work and my guess is that it has also kept out the rats as I don't see any rat damage to the feeders. For those that are interested, it was simple: Take an extra large plastic trash can lid, punch a hole in the middle, run the chain for your hanging feeder through the trash lid hole and then up to your connector. The lid should hang slightly above your feeder like a big floppy umbrella. Squirrels try to access the feeders by jumping onto the the top - but the lid is slippery and wobbles and they lose their footing and fall off before they can get to the feeder underneath. (Kind of like "wipeout" for squirrels.) Home Depot has excess lids from all the folks that buy trash can's but don't want the matching lids - they will give you the lids for free if you ask nicely.