The Prospect Park Alliance will institute a carry-in, carry-out garbage
policy affecting certain areas of the park next year. File Photo
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COURIER LIFE, DEC. 27, 2019-JAN. 2, 2020 3
BY COLIN MIXSON
The non-for-profi t caretakers
of Prospect Park will
ask visitors to take a greater
hand in maintaining Brooklyn’s
Backyard beginning
sometime next year, when
certain areas of the park will
be subject to a “carry-in, carry
out” garbage policy modeled
after the National Park
Service’s like-named program,
according to a spokeswoman
for the Prospect Park
Alliance.
“I can confi rm that we are
planning to pilot a carry-in,
carry-out trash program in
the park’s Lookout Hill,” said
Deborah Kirschner.
The upcoming pilot program
is designed to help protect
wooded, highland areas of
the park, where work vehicles
have diffi culty maneuvering
and litter poses a danger to
the natural environment, according
to Kirschner.
Prospect Park’s upcoming
garbage program is in the
early stages of development,
and is being modeled after
carry-in, carry-out policies
utilized by the National Parks
Service, in which trash cans
are removed from natural areas
to encourage visitors to
manage their own litter and
free up state resources for
other projects, according to a
City Lab report.
However, fewer trash cans
hasn’t always translated to
less litter, according to a report
by the Wall Street Journal,
and Kirschner said that
the Alliance’s program would
be accompanied with a strong
public education campaign in
an effort to increase compliance.
The spokeswoman could
not confi rm whether the Alliance
would reduce garbage
pickups in the affected areas,
but said that garbage cans
would be reshuffl ed to centralized
locations within the
park and that the aim of the
new policy is not to cutback on
maintenance.
“The idea behind carry-in,
carry-out is to centralize the
garbage cans in key access
point areas – it does not necessarily
mean fewer cans or
fewer pickups, just more strategic
placement of cans and
garbage removal points,”
Kirschner explained.
Prospect Park Alliance
President Sue Donoghue
unveiled the upcoming carry
in, carry-out policy to
volunteer members of the
Prospect Park Community
Committee — a coalition
of local organizations that
gather on a monthly basis
with the Parks Department
and Prospect Park Alliance
to discuss issues concerning
Brooklyn’s Backyard — at a
meeting on Nov. 20, where
some members were skeptical
that park patrons would
do their part maintain the
green space.
Stanley Greenberg, a longtime
member of the Brooklyn
Bird Club, pointed to the proliferation
of dog poop around
the park, along with the city’s
failure to police the prohibition
on cars in Prospect Park
as a sure sign of the plan’s impending
failure.
“This kind of policy doesn’t
work for dog walkers, or drivers,
so I don’t expect that it
will work for people who litter,”
said Greenberg.
But others were pleased at
the new direction the Alliance
was taking, claiming it’s high
time that the people who love
and enjoy Prospect Park do
their part to keep it clean.
“We can’t have a garbage
can every 10 feet,” said Seth
Kaplan, a member of the Prospect
Park Community Committee.
“It’s giving people a
new frame of reference and
saying, ‘just bring it in and
take it out,’ and that’s all.”
TRASH PLAN
Prospect Park to begin carry-in, carry-out garbage policy in 2020
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