Dreaming of Clean Streets, Clean Air, and Lower Costs in Princeton

This is my dream for making clean streets, clean air and lower costs routine in Princeton: a compost cart put out for pickup on a specified day each week.

Though yardwaste bags could still be used, the cart would hold as much as all these bags together, and not require lifting by the resident nor the collecting crew, which would use a small hydraulic tipper hook to empty the cart.

And collection would happen most weeks of the year, and on a specific day of the week, like trash or recycling, so that the streets wouldn't be littered with crumpled bags of yardwaste for weeks on end,

as they soften, fester and ooze.

My dream is not this,

nor this, which backed up runoff during a recent rain,

nor this, which sat in the street for many days and caused a car to skid,

nor this, which festered in the street for weeks.

No,

my dream is this. Let the giant collecting machines roll in autumn if people really need to purge their properties of leaves. Let the machines make special pickups of large doses of brush.

But for most weeks of the year, please, Princeton, make these compost carts available to residents. We deserve a pleasant streetscape. Be skeptical of the naysayers. This dream has been realized in municipalities across the country. Why not here?