The Rockville City Council voted in July to end the highly successful once-a-week trash pilot program that was carried out over several months in the Hungerford and Monument Park neighborhoods, and provide city-wide twice-a-week trash collection instead, a disappointing outcome to those of us who support a less costly, more environmentally friendly once-a-week solution. But we have not given up hope. I was gratified to see at the end of this article in the Gazette that Susan Hoffman considers the choice of this "expensive, least efficient, most polluting system" still open for debate.

Art Stigile, one of the participants in the pilot program, has been very active in rallying people to support the extension of the successful pilot program to the whole city (though it appears most residents in the pilot neighborhoods don't need much rallying -- they're already in agreement), and has created a petition to be collected and sent to the Council in September. I put up a modified version of the petition for residents of any part of Rockville which you can fill out and send if you feel so moved. And here's a list of some local resources that provide alternatives to throwing things away.