PROPER RECEPTACLES

On the side of the liquor-convenience store around the corner from my house, the City of Oakland has put up one of its anti-litter billboards. "Love stinks," it reads. "But not as much as cheese puffs rotting on the sidewalk."

Hmmmmmm.

It took me a while to figure out that this is one of the billboards admonishing Oaklanders to deposit our trash in the proper receptacle. Now, of course, if only the City would provide one or two more receptacles for the trash to be properly deposited in. There is no trash bin in the vicinity of our neighborhood liquor-convenience store, and so the scores of children who pass daily between the store and the housing project and various fourplexes on our street leave a trail of cans and wrappers and packages and bottles strewn in their wake, as if they had been kidnapped by witches and were making sure they could find their way back. Exactly where do we expect this stuff to go?

This is not a phenomenon limited to side streets like Seminary Avenue, if you can call Seminary Avenue a side street, and, therefore, not worthy enough of a city trash can of its own.

In the nine blocks between 73rd Avenue and 82nd Avenue on the west side of International Boulevard…one of Oakland’s major streets…there are only two city trash cans…one on 73rd, and one on 82nd.

I wish that were the worst of it. In the seven blocks between 66th Avenue and Havenscourt, also on the west side of International, there are none. This is a stretch that includes two liquor stores, the front door of a middle school, a housing project, a carnecería, and a fast food take out-only restaurant.

And even when there is an adequate number of city trash baskets, the city doesn’t always adequately service them. Random survey. Driving. Late Sunday night. Trash baskets at 83rd, 85th, and 88th…all on the west side of International Boulevard…all so full and overflowing that citizens, bless their hearts, had begun to set their trash on the sidewalk surrounding, so that it was beginning to pile up in little mounds.

If I said this before it’s because I was freaked out by the billboard, which I’m now getting back to.

"Cheese puffs rotting on the sidewalk" may get folks’ attention in other parts of Oakland (or may not), but out here in the Extremes, it doesn’t even get a read. This part of Oakland bumps to a different beat. This is Hiphopland, where drivers blast out speakers with the bass chords, and rappers polish their hooks as they bounce by. A city government truly interested in getting a handle on Oakland’s trash-tossing might better begin by bringing these street poets in. Hold a contest for the best anti-trashing rap (not through Parks and Rec…Harry has enough to do…but maybe through organizations like the East Oakland Youth Development Center). Let the slogans be written by the people the city most wants to reach. The winning raps get put on billboards in the communities where the rappers live. Let the local taggers provide the illustrations. That’s how you get communities to buy into a project, by turning it over to them. Telling people this is "our" Oakland only works if it actually is "our" Oakland.

Of course, none of this is going to work at all if the trashers don’t stay around the neighborhood long enough to read the signage.

Saturday morning (daylight, this time), I saw a young, white couple stop their SUV on the corner of G Street and 92nd Avenue, pull some trash off the top of their car where it had been tied, and toss it into a pile on the sidewalk. I mention their race only because there are not many young, white couples living within the vicinity of G Street and 92nd Avenue, or even riding around down there. I tried to get their license number, but they sped away, in the direction of the Coliseum. Maybe they were going to the A’s game, and decided to contribute a little something to our community while they were here.

I suppose we should count ourselves as lucky, though. At least they didn’t hit a doughnut on the way out.