Council debates removal of trash barrels from parks

Jun. 23—BEVERLY — When the pandemic hit last year, new practices like outdoor dining and remote public meetings were adopted by most communities and quickly became accepted.

One pandemic-induced change that occurred in Beverly, however, is receiving a less welcoming reception.

The City Council on Tuesday night at City Hall debated the merits of the decision last spring to remove trash barrels from all of the city's parks for safety reasons. That practice has remained in place, leading some residents to complain about what they say has been an increase in trash in the parks.

Ward 6 City Councilor Dominic Copeland, who filed an order requesting that the City Council talk about the issue, said the public never got a chance to weigh in on the decision.

"That's why some people are so upset," Copeland said. "They didn't know this was going to happen."

Mike Collins, the city's commissioner of public services and engineering, said the decision to remove trash barrels from all parks was made for the safety of city workers who empty the barrels, at a time when there was a lot of uncertainty about how COVID-19 could be transmitted.

But Collins said it turned out that the parks have been "much cleaner" without trash barrels because people take their trash with them.

"The staff of the public services departments are in the parks literally seven days a week, and the direct quote I got from them is, 'It is way better than when we had trash barrels,' meaning less litter," Collins told city councilors.

Collins said the city has had a "carry in, carry out" policy at Lynch Park and Beverly Common for years and it has worked well.

"The difference was night and day," he said. "It's remarkable how much cleaner the parks were."

But Georgia Bills, who lives on Lothrop Street, said "carry in, carry out" is more suited for larger parks like Lynch Park. People who go to Independence Park or Dane Street Beach are often just stopping by to drink coffee or eat an ice cream and are more apt to leave their trash behind, she said. Dog waste, she said, is the worst part of having no trash barrels.

Bills sent an email to councilors with several photos of trash that she took on a morning walk from lower Lothrop Street to Hospital Point.

"Carry in, carry out is not working in our smaller parks," Bills told councilors. "It's a great idea for national parks, and I see it working fairly well in Lynch Park. It is not practical in the rest of Beverly's smaller parks."

Councilors generally agreed that there should be more discussion about the topic, and that some sort of compromise could be achieved. The City Council voted 9-0 in support of Copeland's order calling for more discussion.

Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.