Home > Lawrenceville.Talk > Archives > 2006 > July > 11
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Is Lawrenceville’s No. 1 problem environmental?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
True or false: In Lawrenceville, can old furniture be left curbside for trash pickup?
True. Gwinnett County-approved garbage haulers should pick up not only Hefty tall kitchen bags full of uneaten dinner portions, but also old furniture, old appliances (that don’t have pollutants) and three types of recyclable products.
I came across these words of waste management wisdom when my in-sink garbage disposal died on the Fourth of July stuffed with scraps of potatoes. Thanks to irrelevant Internet searches for “garbage disposals/Lawrenceville,” I ended up at the web site for Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful.
This Lawrenceville-based non-profit organization seeks to find the inner good housekeeper in all of us. They have instructions for composting, adopting roads and recycling all sorts of stuff from the once-a-year dead Christmas tree to the weekly milk jugs from Publix.
They also have online complaint forms for tattling on your neighbor’s unsightly never-emptied garbage or for violations of the “no handbills ordinance.” Yes, your neighborhood can actually sign up online for a “no handbills decal” to keep those lawn service and housekeeping handbills off of your mailbox.
With national awards for promoting a litter-free Gwinnett County environment, Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful also reports that last year $6 million was spent removing litter from Georgia roads with taxpayer dollars. This money could be better spent, they say, and I agree in epic proportions.
But what’s missing from this site is the ongoing development debate about our county rapidly growing. No discussions here about tree saving versus strip mall building, or smog and pollution caused by the lack of additional transportation options.
Perhaps this is because the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners appoints the Citizens Board that governs this organization. I imagine political correctness is important even when strategically planning for foul-smelling sanitation.
They do, however, have a great online survey that begins by asking Gwinnett County residents, “What is the most important problem facing Gwinnett County today?”
Lawrenceville seems pretty clean to me compared to my previous DeKalb County-living.
Do you think our number one problem has anything to do with environmental solutions?
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Jacqueline Bullard
