The Board of Selectmen during its most recent meeting approved an approximately $11,000 contract with a Middletown-based company to provide dumpsters at six locations in town.
Those are the Fire Department, Police Department/Emergency Medical Services, New Canaan High School track and tennis courts, and Waveny field bathroom and west parking lot, according to Parks & Recreation Director John Howe.
“Those are dumpsters we are using for the public, whether they’re disposing stuff after athletic things or [dog] poop bags or what have you,” Howe told the selectmen during their Aug. 19 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the $10,932 contract with Murphy Road.
The selectmen asked whether the contract covers the entire year (yes).
Murphy Carroll noted that some residents are still using the dumpsters incorrectly, putting household waste in them.
Carlson said, “We’ve got more and more cameras going in.”
Karl said that the town has eliminated many of the garbage cans in parks over the years and that the dumpster system has worked for keeping trash off of playing fields.
Howe responded, “It actually works very well. People don’t see it, because if people see litter they figure, ‘Well if there was a trash can there, it would be in the trash can.’ But this avoids two major problems: Squirrels and crows pick trash out of cans all the time and spread it, and also … the labor saved of dumping trash is huge. It’s a lot. And most people respect the parks and do the right thing, but we notice the ones that don’t. That’s the problem.”