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Feb. 18, 2005 San Francisco’s gutsy Mayor, Gavin Newsom, a fourth generation native of America’s favorite city, has taken on another high-profile challenge, an old-fashioned one, but still, nevertheless, on America’s urban frontier: street litter. Litter? On America’s urban frontier? Yes, litter, which threatens to choke our drainage systems, bays, and waterways; mar our cities, beaches, and world-renowned natural wonders; and poison already endangered species on land and ocean. For those who think litter is only a San Francisco problem, listen to this recent warning and lamentation in a Seattle Times editorial: “Hey, you with the plastic bag flapping in the wind, and you with the candy wrapper dangling from your pocket: “Don't even think about dropping that stuff on the sidewalk or the street. Today's careless handling of paper or plastic is tomorrow's pollution. There is so much litter on city streets these days Seattleites can no longer pretend litter doesn't matter. It does. The League of Women Voters recently identified litter as one of the top concerns facing urban areas such as Seattle.” In my fair city, San Francisco, this media savvy little-big town, because both flowers and thorns get noted, hosted, and propelled on to the state, national, and world stages at blog and search engine speed, the skeptic in me wonders: “Is our telegenic Mayor invading our high-litter districts with broom and citation tickets in hand to capture the latest spotlight in back-to-basics urban politics?” My friend, Jim, berates me for my doubts. “What a time to turn skeptic!” he says. “For many San Franciscans like me tired by scofflaw litterbugs, the Mayor’s anti-litter campaign couldn’t have happened soon enough. I have never seen the San Francisco Bay so polluted as I saw it recently, when the usual storm runoff deposited street litter into the home of sea lions.” He quotes Noah Matson, director of the federal lands program for Defenders of Wildlife, as saying: "We pave over everything. When it rains, the runoff shoots out, taking everything with it -- motor oil, soda bottles and plastic six-pack holders -- right into the bay." San Francisco? A litterbug’s Paradise? Not if you live in tony Pacific Heights or even Russian Hill. Yes, if you live in the high density Tenderloin and Mission districts which have a lot of foot and auto traffic. Newsom’s campaign, whatever motivates it, couldn’t have happened soon enough for Jim. “Better late, than never,” says he, a Keep My Fair City Clean booster. “Consider the litter calls: They have ballooned by 15% to 44,518 in 2004, a year in which the Department of Public Works picked up 23,451 tons, an increase of 35% over the previous year, turning the Most Beautiful City in the World into Litterland-by-the-Bay. “With so much waste of a throwaway modern world cluttering ground level, tourists must angle their shots of our urbanscape toward the sky above in order to preserve the Most Beautiful City image of San Francisco.” Announcing his city-wide Anti-Litter Campaign at 16th and Mission, a major city intersection, till now a safe haven for litterbugs and scofflaws of other stripes and descriptions, the city’s 42nd Mayor, 13 months into his first term, vowed to clean up his hometown and return it to its once “vibrant image.” “Instead of streets littered with trash, graffiti, and dilapidated buildings, it is time to have a more aggressive approach to dealing with this issue,” he declared. The solution—a fashionable troika: Education, Enforcement, and Abatement. Fines will range from citations of $80 to $1,000 for individuals. The city will authorize 400 city employees from 43 different classifications to issue the citations. With the passion Newsom exhibits on the subject, Jim half expects the Honorable Mayor to descend on some locations with broom and citation forms in a passion play that integrates the troika with a leading-by-example twist. Jim harbors sanguinary feelings about the expected awarding of just desserts for those who compulsively do litter? Well, why not? Consider the cost to San Franciscans of not taking any action: According to the City, the annual costs for street cleaning is $26,000,000, which includes both mechanical and manual collection of litter from San Francisco’s streets. Just for bag collection and transportation, the cost is $2,600,000 a year. This translates to 5.2 cents a bag. “I give full credit to our brave Mayor for venturing where his two predecessors went before and failed,” says Jim,turning into a Newsom Booster, but the very next moment he tosses a tough electronic question for the Mayor: “But what about the sanitary engineers who don’t pick up what they spill every morning? Will they be instructed to pick up after themselves?” They better, the Mayor’s job depends on it, based on his promise. The 37-year-old, “Hollywood handsome” (as one magazine put it) Mayor--who has boldly adopted a housing-first approach for addressing San Francisco’s biggest unresolved challenge in the last quarter century, homelessness--has said that if he fails in his clean-the-streets campaign, residents could turn him out of office in three years. Jim balances his enthusiasm with a cautionary tale from Manchester, United Kingdom: “‘According to Roland Hancock in the Manchester Evening News, ‘A SCHOOLBOY was sent a £50 fine and threatened with criminal action after an envelope with his name was found next to the local tip. “‘Nobody had seen 11-year-old Jake Lannon drop the litter on Sandford Lane, Levenshulme. ,br>“‘But the fine was issued automatically by environmental health officers because the envelope carried his name and address.’” The fine was rescinded only after irate tax payers provided the most logical of explanations: the envelope must have blown off the local (tip) dump. “What about cigarette butts, Jim?” I inquire. “Wouldn’t you like the Mayor to kick some butts? “According to the Clean Virginia Waterways campaign, contrary to smokers’ belief that cigarette filters are made of nontoxic, biodegradable cotton, they are in fact ‘made of plastic cellulose acetate, and take many years to decompose.’ “And, Jim, did you know cig butts are the most frequently littered item in the U. S., they contain toxins, and smokers compulsively toss 175 cig butts a year? Worldwide the total is 2.1 billion pounds.” “Learn something new everyday!” responds Jim. “Whew! What a load of toxins on land, sea, and beach; highway, byway, and lane; mountainside, peak, and trail; desert and sand dune; wetland and bog!” So, Mayor Gavin Newsom, go get him! Please kick some butts in your hometown! As goes San Francisco, so goes the United States and the world! ------------ About the author: Michael Chacko Daniels, a Californian, grew up in India. He is a writer, editor, community worker, and former clown. Visit him and his works at: http://IndiaWritingStation.squarespace.com Email: mchackod@pacbell.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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