For a year we maintained a litter basket mounted to a lamp post in front of our house, emptying it every trash day. My husband removed it last week. It’s now sitting in our walkway, awaiting pick-up by the city. He no longer could bear the bad behavior of some users of the litter basket.

In some ways the litter basket was successful. Passers-by did not casually drop whatever was in their hand as they walked along the sidewalk. They put their doggie bags, their plastic cups and gum wrappers in the basket. One day after the litter basket was taken down, I picked up three pieces of trash in front of our house—trash I hadn’t seen for months when the litter basket was up.

Another success was the kindness of our neighbors. When we were gone on a trash day, friends living nearby happily took turns pulling out the trash bag, tying it up and setting it on the street and replacing it with a fresh bag. Many grateful dog owners thanked us for maintaining the basket.

But, finally, it was the thoughtless behavior of people who couldn’t be bothered to take home their doggie bag when they found the basket full that did the project in. It was the people who stuffed pizza boxes into the basket, leaving no room for anything else. It was the people who, finding the basket full, left their doggie bags on the sidewalk for us to pick up. When my husband wasn’t home to empty it, it was impossible for me to lift the heaviest, overflowing bags out of the basket because I wasn’t tall enough.

Several weekends this spring finally disgusted us so much that we couldn’t do it anymore. 

This could have worked with a couple of adjustments. These baskets need to be located throughout the neighborhoods, two to a block. The refuse would then be dispersed so each basket would be less full.

And someone needs to empty them. Only three residents in this neighborhood volunteered to do the job, but the city never put up baskets for them. Otherwise, no one else, including the people who serve on the neighborhood’s “clean” committee, were willing to tackle the job.

And the city claims it has no money to deploy workers to empty baskets like these, preferring to let Boston be trashy.

Another helpful addition would be signs on the baskets, instructing people as to what to do with their trash, since many people apparently aren’t smart enough to figure that out on their own.

We proved that such a basket helped the trash problem. We had trash thrown in front of our house or dropped in our tree pit only a couple of times during the whole year. And it’s not just residents who need these litter baskets. Our historic neighborhoods have tourists walking through who are surprised to find that Boston doesn’t provide litter baskets in residential areas, as most cities with such neighborhoods do.

It’s curious about trash. It’s one of the most frequent complaints about living in Boston—the trash, the dog doo, the general slovenly nature of the place. But between the people who create the trash, the reluctance of residents to pay more in taxes so we can hire more trash collectors, and the paucity of individuals who’ll take on the matter themselves—maybe people don’t mind it so much after all.