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Baltimore mayor & community activists share what's being done to address trash problem


Baltimore trash- WBFF.PNG
Baltimore trash- WBFF.PNG
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As the City of Baltimore continues to address its trash problem, Mayor Jack Young says there is no easy solution and says everyone must assume responsibility from his office, to the city council, city agencies, businesses and the public.

During a ceremony Wednesday honoring teenagers who participated in a summer jobs program, the mayor said "We have given the owners of these (commercial) properties warnings that they must dispose of their trash properly and if not they will be fined."

More than 50 community associations in Baltimore received city grants which allowed them to hire hundreds of teens to pick up trash.

Dwyane Richardson, founder of a non-profit organization "Making Good in Our Community," supervises teen teenagers in the city's Belair-Edison neighborhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, he showed a reporter how he transformed an abandoned lot behind row-houses into a park.

"It was nothing but dirt, rocks and trash back here," said Richardson.

He credit a city agency known as "Bmore Beautiful: for offering his organization a grant that has allowed him to pay ten teenagers to pick up trash over a 12 week period.

"Two years ago, they came into my life and enabled us to get funding to help keep this lot the way it is and enabled me to pay kids to go out in the neighborhood an clean up," said Richardson.

The teenagers only work one hour a day, five days a week, but they receive ten dollars an hour.

Camron Jackson, who lives in Harford County, says "I got out to be helpful in my community, help with the trash and everything and we pick up trash in all the neighborhoods."

But Jackson and other teens say they are frustrated that as soon as they pick up trash, it often reappears the next day.

Kiarra White says "They just throw that trash around, so I go pick it right up."

Richardson says "In order to keep a city clean and keep a city positive, we all got to work together. It can't just be a few of us, it's got to be all of us you know."

Meleny Thomas, a community activist in Baltimore's Curtis Bay neighborhood, says other steps need to be taken to address the city's trash problem.

"We see apartment buildings that don't have the proper trash receptacles, so we see other things that contribute to the pile-ups of trash," said Thomas.

Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, President of the Mathew Henson Community Association, says more steps need to be taken to crack down on illegal dumping.

"We need cameras to catch some of the construction people that are dumping in our neighborhoods but also we need to catch some of our neighbors that are dumping."

Cheatham add "We need two day trash pick up. We are not doing well with recycling. Yes we need to be recycling but right now it's not working for us."

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