It’s Spring in Terre Haute — the last couple of warm weekends many of us have been planting trees, noticing daffodils and other flowers blooming, and trying to tame the perennial winter accumulation of trash in our gutters, yards and alleys. Encouraging citizens to take responsibility for maintaining their own property and helping tame the trash in their own alleys has always been part of my message for improving our neighborhoods, but when the most basic maintenance is not done, our city’s code enforcers step in.

The guys working for Terre Haute’s Environmental Protection Division work hard to encourage compliance with the City Code, but sometimes the code is poorly written and unenforceable. The last sentence of this excerpt from Chapter 6, Article 5, Division II has been a problem since it was added in 2002:

“Sec. 6-96 Garbage and Trash Regulations.

b. It shall be the responsibility of the owner, occupant, or lessee of any building, structure, or property in the City, where garbage or trash is generated or exists to provide or cause to be provided, and at all times to keep or cause to be kept portable containers, receptacles or dumpsters for holding garbage and trash.

All residential garbage and trash to be deposited in such containers, receptacles or dumpsters shall be sacked in a plastic type bags or boxes. Each such container shall have handles and lids of such size, type, and construction as to be secure and readily and conveniently emptied and handled by collectors. There shall be an appropriate number of containers to hold all garbage and trash plastic type bags or boxes. In the alternative garbage and trash but not held in a container as provided herein shall be limited to being set out for pick up no earlier than the night before the scheduled pick up and shall be sacked in plastic type bags or boxes closed and tightly secured.”

My proposed ordinance simply strikes that last, italicized sentence and makes everything that comes before it more enforceable. Most people I have spoken with about this issue assume that every home needs to have a trash can with a lid, by law. General Ordinance 5, 2007 simply clarifies that point.

This is an admittedly small piece of a much larger set of community problems that we simply must face and deal with. How we dispose of our household garbage relates directly to Terre Haute’s appearance, our attractiveness to wild animals (i.e. crows, possums, rats and raccoons), and the presence of unwanted domestic animals in our neighborhoods (feral cats and dogs).

It’s not too much to ask people to put their trash in a can and put a lid on it. Taking action to address our most visible community problems takes many forms — including tightening up our City Code to make it more enforceable, and encouraging citizens to take responsibility for the appearance of their property.