Commercial Trash Dumped in Tree Pit on Cortelyou Road
I had a great community experience of planting Daffodils in the tree pits along Cortelyou Road the previous two weekends. So I was especially disheartened to find this afternoon that someone placed their trash in one of the tree pits.
You can see from the photo that it’s mostly recycling. There’s a bundle of cardboard on the right. The blue bags contain plastic and metal recyclables. The black bag contained mixed garbage, including papers identifying the business whose trash this was.
I don’t want to identify them right now. I want to give them a chance to respond. If I have time, I’ll try calling them tomorrow. I emailed them earlier this evening:
This afternoon I noticed that the tree pit in front of your building on Cortelyou Road had several bags and bundles of recycling and garbage in it. I looked for any items that could identify where it came from. I found several pieces of paper from your business.
You may not know that your neighbors spent the past two weekends working on the tree pits along Cortelyou Road from the subway station to Coney island Avenue. We removed all the accumulated garbage, weeded the pits, and planted Daffodil bulbs, which will bloom next April.
Please dispose of your commercial trash properly, at curb-side, and not in the tree pit.
I called 311 to register a complaint. They didn’t even have a category for this. They said they would add it to their system, and to call back in a few days. I can’t believe that noone has ever complained about this kind of thing before. If I have time, I’ll try calling Parks, who have responsibility and authority for tree pits, and ask them what to do the next time this happens.
I removed the trash from the pit after I took my photos.
That’s so wrong!!
How disheartening. Maybe it’s simply a matter of educating these people as to what the tree pits are really meant to be used for? (I hope.)
That’s horrible–but maybe people just don’t know any better. Too bad.
The problem is the tenets of the apartments above the stores don’t know where to deposit their trash.
Cortelyou is plagued with their garbage and there is no neat place to deposit it.
This needs to be addressed by the owners and the Cortelyou Merchants Assoc.
Can Sustainable Cortelyou, FDC or Friends of Cortelyou help?
It is always amazing to me what street trees have to go through in order to survive. I think your note and giving the people a chance to correct the problem is a good strategy. Education is what is needed!
Sad, but still, it could be worse… Someone has decided that the abandoned trailer park near our place is an excellent old-sofa dumping ground.
Then someone else put a dead calf in with them.
I’m not kidding!
that could happen anywhere, but still – it is horrible, how people invade every little piece of earth and don’t care whether they leave trash behind…
I’m hoping that this will require some awareness on the part of the business owner. I still haven’t gotten a response from the email I sent them.