Garbage-Pickup Limits Mulled

Reprinted from AMBOY BEACON,


Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010

PERTH AMBOY — Public Works Director Paul Wnek jokes about Perth Amboy’s garbage-trucks arriving at the Edgeboro Landfill, East Brunswick, and their drivers being asked, “How-many cities are you collecting?” But Wnek agrees that the massive quantities of garbage, trash and debris consistently-collected by the city’s Sanitation Division are no joking matter. In fact, he is taking this issue so-seriously that he has proposed sending -out “sanitation inspection crews” to enforce how disposables are set-out for collection through existing and new fines and regulations. Wnek and Supervisor Eddie Perez participated in a discussion of possible changes to Perth Amboy’s Sanitation Ordinance at a Special Meeting of the City Council, held at the Training Room at Fire Department Headquarters, New Brunswick Avenue, on July 26. The discussion followed a closed-to-the-public tour of the city’s $89 million Pulic Safety/Municipal Court/Community Center Complex, New Brunswick and Amboy Avenues led by Joseph Nigro, Project Supervisor for Imperial Construction Group Inc., Elizabeth, who was hired by the city recently to provide “litigation-support services” for the Complex construction. Wnek showed officials photographs of massive apartment-complex collections, many of the city’s 300 street-baskets overflowing less than one hour after t
hey were emptied, various bulk-item collections. and opened bags displaying construction-material being thrown-out as trash. “We have around 58 full-time employees daily out of a total of 72, and we’re getting a lot of work done,” he said. “But one of the changes we really-need is to require a list of what’s on a ‘special pickup’ so we don’t get the neighbors piling their stuff on-top-of that.” Wnek said he believes that “some absentee-landlords with properties in other cities are bringing-in stuff at-night from properties they own in other cities where they’d have to pay.” Some pickups involve “a half-a-block of plastic bags piled six- to eight-feet-tall,” he said. “It’s just-not-normal what’s out-there.” Wnek said the average Perth Amboy home generates “2,000 pounds of garbage and 750 pounds of recyclables” when it should be in reverse-order. Perez said there have been 40 incidents of injuries to sanitation-workers since January 2009 because of the materials being put-out with regular garbage, further-reducing the number of available employees. “I’ve even suggested putting-out six-yard dumpsters so people can bring the stuff from their houses to put it in the dumpsters,” he said. City Law Director Mark Blunda proposed that he meet with Wnek and Business Administrator Jane Feigenbaum to incorporate some of the suggestions into a draft Amendment for future consideration.