Change can be a pain. Even change that involves a switch in municipal trash collection from alleys to curbside. A lot of East Valley neighborhoods have experienced the change, and the pain, in recent years.
Now some Mesa residents are shaking their fists at the city for demanding that they abandon their beloved communal alley trash barrels for the smaller personal barrels that they have to wheel out to the curb the night before trash-pickup day.
For residents, there are advantages to both alley and curb pickup. Aesthetics is one disadvantage of curbside pickup; some object to the "ugly" trash barrels out front. But the overriding advantages of curb pickup are cost and safety.
Mesa taxpayers stand to save $73,500 once the last of Mesa’s neighborhoods go to curbside pickup by automated trucks. It’s one of those changes that, on balance, we can all live with.
