In this the season of desiccated Christmas trees stacked at curbside and of Dustbusters perpetually choked with dry needles, community gardeners and Boy Scouts gather round wood chippers to watch entire forests' worth of castoff Christmas trees get ground into mulch.þþBut the sanitation workers' union tossed a small wrench into the works of New York City's annual tree mulching ritual last weekend: it complained that the city's Parks Department trucks were being used to pick up trees for chipping — an infringement of the sanitation workers' right to cart them away as garbage.þþÿThat's our job, house-to-house collection,ÿ said Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association. ÿWhy not accept their help? Because in the past, we've always collected those trees. They're taking our jobs away from our members.ÿþþThen he added, ÿWould you want someone to do your job?ÿþþThe problem is, the Sanitation Department no longer collects trees for mulching. Until this year, sanitation workers were paid overtime to pick up trees after Christmas and deliver them to the parks for chipping. But the department cut the collection program last year, hoping to save $1.5 million.þþAs a result, trees collected by the department now end up in landfills in the company of the rest of the city's voluminous garbage. The Department of Parks and Recreation, along with community groups, still offers tree mulching, but it is done without the considerable assistance of sanitation trucks.þþÿIt's very beneficial for the park,ÿ James T. Dowell, executive director of the Riverside Park Fund, said of the mulching operation. ÿWe use the mulch. It is not only wonderfully fragrant, but it provides protection for plantings. And it decomposes and provides nourishment.ÿþþBecause of the Sanitation Department cutback, the Riverside Park Fund put out the word to neighborhood and block associations late last year: if they would arrange for trees to be dumped at a designated spot on each block, the fund would send a truck to pick them up and take them to the park for mulching.þþOn Thursday and Friday, Riverside Park Fund employees collected trees from several dozen drop-off points on the Upper West Side. Using a truck that the park fund had bought and donated to the Parks Department for use in the park, they carted the trees to a mulching site at 89th Street and Riverside Drive.þþBut on Saturday, the collection operation stopped abruptly.þþÿWe were told Saturday morning that we could do no more street pickups,ÿ Mr. Dowell said. The fund had plans to do some additional pickups farther uptown next Thursday and Friday in connection with tree chipping scheduled for this weekend at 142nd Street and Riverside Drive.þþÿBecause we've been asked by the Parks Department, we're not going to pick up any more from the street until somebody gives us some direction that that's O.K.,ÿ Mr. Dowell said. ÿAll we've said is that somebody needs to work this out. And it obviously needs to be somebody up the food chain from us.ÿþþMr. Nespoli said he learned late last week that sanitation workers had spotted ÿtrucks going house to house.ÿ He called the Sanitation Department. According to Vito A. Turso, a deputy commissioner for the Sanitation Department, department officials contacted the Parks Department.þþIn an interview yesterday, Mr. Turso invoked the city's administrative code. Under the code, the Sanitation Department has responsibility for collecting garbage. No other agency or organization, he said, has the right to drive the streets and collect ÿsanitation material.ÿþþÿI think if you, in your S.U.V., threw three or four trees from your and your neighbors' home in the back and drove them over to the site, that'd be fine,ÿ he said. ÿBut to either lease, rent, buy or in some other means get a truck to start doing curbside collection of Christmas trees, which is the responsibility of the Department of Sanitation, I think that is something that people might have to look at and find out if it's legal.ÿþþMegan Sheekey, a spokesman for the Parks Department, played down the Christmas tree collection conflict. ÿI would just say that we'd be happy to coordinate with the sanitation union in the future to be sure that they're comfortable with our efforts,ÿ she said.þþMr. Dowell, too, was circumspect.þþÿIf this could be worked out, that would be terrific,ÿ he said. ÿBut at the same time, we aren't interested in causing a point of conflict with the Department of Sanitation or anybody else. I mean, our hearts are pure here. We're just trying to take these trees and chip them and make use of them.ÿþþþ
Source: NY Times
