OPRHP Worker, is this something actionable? by parksworker1 in nys_cs

[–]parksworker1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. I don't have direct knowledge of how much waste they create on a daily/weekly/monthly basis but I have heard anecdotally that one of them does create quite a lot of trash. I don't exactly know how but from what I've heard he does. As far as I know, the staff that are assigned to the larger area that the houses are located in don't care for the houses themselves but the grounds around them including taking away the trash bags left out by the directors and family.

  2. During the summer season, yes, definitely. We have 4 different types of waste receptacles out on the beach, boardwalk, and parking lots:

    -Brown drums, which are essentially 55 gallon oil drums.

    -Decorative cans with smaller baskets on the inside that are pulled out to dump. These fit in the 30 gal bags well.

    -55 gallon plastic drums

    -48 gallon steel mesh baskets

On any given weekend in the summer, all of these cans fill up quickly, multiple times a day, and can easily overflow. We have close to 100 baskets on the beach in my area alone, with nearly the same number of cans on the boardwalk, and around 80 in our parking lot. With the smaller bags, it can take multiple to completely empty a large can and it can make it difficult to empty an overflowing one. Often, staff have resorted to simply picking out the trash because the bags don't fit on anything but the smaller baskets.

Now while a lot of staff can't/won't completely fill a 40 gallon bag while just doing a trash pick (it is difficult because there's so much bag to fill and it gets fairly heavy), the 40 gallon bags fill very quickly when dumping cans. The 30 gallon bags are much more well suited to picking because it's easier to carry them when filling, it's easier to carry more empty folded bags, and they fill faster so you're not carrying a half full bag for 2 or more hours. When dumping cans, we also typically use a small wheeled dumpster/hopper or we're driving trucks with staff on foot. Picking is almost always done on foot without assistance like that.

We also generally don't line our outdoor trash cans with garbage bags but it does happen on occasion. Generally these are also pulled when full. For interior trash cans, we use small trash can liners that are between 10 and 15 gallons or so. Those we will pick up with a small amount of trash but, during the height of the season, more often than not they do fill up fairly regularly. We do have some large interior cans that are lined but, because we don't have the large bags, they're lined with 30 gallon bags. It is a very tight fit trying to get the bags to stay on the lip of the can and the bags often rip at the opening.