Waste Not! Carroll

Posted: Monday, August 9, 2010

By Carrie Ann Knauer, From Carroll County Times

John Witiak used to spend Thursday mornings walking up and down Main Street in Union Bridge, collecting trash bags with discarded waste from the public trash cans before the waste haulers came through.

But lately there have been no trash bags to collect. Someone has been stealing them.

"It's just kind of a thing that's happening," said Witiak, a member of the Lions Club and the Union Bridge Business Association, who voluntarily picks up the trash. "It's probably just one or two people going through a phase."

Not all of the trash cans have been hit, he said, particularly not the ones at the southern end of town. But trash bags in cans near Broad Street were repeatedly being stolen.

Witiak said he tried putting trash in the bags to see if that would discourage the culprit, but it didn't.

Not wanting to lose any more of the bags, which are donated by the town's 7-Eleven, Witiak said he's stopped putting trash bags in the trash cans. Now he goes by several times a week to check the level of trash in them, pulling out what he needs to and throwing it away in his own trash can at home.

Mayor Bret Grossnickle shook his head when Witiak gave him an update on the trash bag situation at the last Union Bridge Town Council meeting.

"I can't imagine times are so bad you have to steal trash bags out of public trash cans," Grossnickle said.

Councilwoman Amy Kalin, who owns Hair & Now salon on Main Street, said she thinks it is a shame that someone has resorted to stealing trash bags from public trash cans.

"We really like having them," Kalin said of the trash cans, but they just aren't the same when you can see the loose trash sitting in the bottom without a bag.

The trash cans were donated to the town by the Lions Club. Witiak said he isn't that mad about people stealing the trash bags - he's just glad that they're not stealing the whole trash cans, which would be pretty expensive to replace.

"We leave them empty right now, and maybe they'll get the message," he said.

Reach staff writer Carrie Ann Knauer at 410-857-7874 or carrie.knauer@carrollcountytimes.com.