Driving down 45th the other day, I saw a street cleaner. As it lumbered down the street, spinning brushes flinging water, it suddenly struck me as very absurd. What is the point of this?
I get picking up trash but scrubbing the street? Might my tax dollars be spent more efficiently?
Move to DC, you'll never have to have this discussion with yourself because public services are rather... transparent.
ReplyDeleteStreet sweepers are AQMD certified and can pick up particles as small as 10 micrometres or less (PM-10), a leading cause of stormwater pollution. Any contaminates in the streets go right into the storm water drains and right into the sound without any treatment...that help?
ReplyDeleteSort of. Has there been any definitive proof that street cleaners help clean the sound? Because once a month cleaning wouldn't seem to be enough considering all the through traffic. Besides, rather than sucking much up, it seems to me that an awful lot of debris was being kicked up. I can only imagine that micro-particles (a made up word by me?) were airborne rather than sucked up.
ReplyDeleteI remember that street cleaner on 45th...always in the middle of the night...when I was trying to sleep in my apartment on 45th. Ahh, good times. I'm glad we have street sweepers, Seattle is a much much much cleaner city than some of the other places I've been, and I always appreciate that about our lovely city.
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