![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/web_trash_playground-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Brian Stone<\/p>\n
Dearborn, Mich. — On fences, fields, streets and side lots an invasive, unwanted species is multiplying: Litter.<\/p>\n
It’s everybody’s problem and everybody’s eyesore all at once. It’s seen growing in places once thought unthinkable.<\/p>\n
Dearborn was once known for neighborhood cleanup parades and a totalitarian approach to oppressing oddiments. While the fine for littering hasn’t changed since the Hubbard years, it’s clear that the enforcement of those rules has.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the playground at the Dearborn Civic Center, children slide up and down equipment as disposable containers, their contents long-since sucked out by some stranger, are scattered across the grass.<\/p>\n
Residents resent the residue. In the COVID-era it’s dangerous, disgusting and it affects our quality of life.<\/p>\n
Meredith Gorden, a local insurance agent, had a nasty run-in with some particularly rude rubbish. She parked her car in the lot by the Butcher’s Grille in West Dearborn and a vape pen punctured her car tire.<\/p>\n
Surveying the damage, Gorden said, “I just can’t have nice things, can I?”<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/web_vape_Peng_gordon-225x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
No – no you can’t, Meredith. None of us can – because this city just doesn’t care anymore.<\/p>\n
On a recent video, walking through another parking lot in Dearborn, Gorden counted more than 29 disposed vape pens polluting an area barely a few parking spaces wide. During the pandemic, the idea of picking up something other people stuck their mouths on isn’t just disgusting – it can be dangerous.<\/p>\n
Dearborn’s trash problem is ubiquitous. From the West End, to the East End, to the South End, trash is sprouting in all the nooks and crannies faster than dandelions.<\/p>\n
On a stretch of road where Greenfield and Michigan Avenue intersect, little white pieces of paper and plastic cling to some half-dead grass like a symbiotic scrap-flower, jiggling in the wind as cars breeze by.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/web_trash_road-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
As the city seems incapable or uninterested in its most basic cleanliness, residents are forced to take the law – and the litter – into their own hands.<\/p>\n
A group of boy scouts recently spent half a day cleaning up trash near a local church. In a short time, they had several garbage bags of trash filled up. “How nice!” we say – except the rest of the city was still sprouting high with sediment.<\/p>\n
The problem is too big for any one person, or even a group of people, to handle. And some city services have come to exemplify the way we’ve hit rock-bottom with our rummagings.<\/p>\n
Our trash contractor – Green For Life – is getting a name for itself as the Dearborn debris distributor extraordinaire. Trash ends up spread across the streets and lawns of Dearborn on trash day, as the trucks leave a crumb trail of crud so long that even the rats raise their little noses at it. But hey – aren’t you so glad they saved us money, agreeing to\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>lowest-cost bid?<\/p>\n Trash today – trash tomorrow – trash everyday! The trash is our new constant. The Zen of trash – that’s how you find peace in Dearborn. Or, at least – pieces.<\/p>\n The city needs to get on the job. They need to hire more people for enforcement and start addressing the flowering of filth all over the city.<\/em><\/p>\n Our trash-tastrophy is a direct result of policies that treat our parks, neighborhoods and everyday services like an afterthought compared to public safety.<\/p>\n And maybe that’s something our mayoral candidates should consider next time they promise unspecified, unpaid tax cuts for wealthy landowners while the rest of us drown in detritus. I think we’d all be happier paying our taxes if we got to live in a city that looks like it cares.<\/p>\n Hell, raise my taxes – please! Just pick up the trash and give somebody a ticket. That’s all I’m asking for. That, and maybe a few less vape pens.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n