Baltimore MD: The Baltimore City Council, by a vote of 13 to 1, today banned ugly looking garbage in the city. Severe fines will be levied on those residents who leave unsightly garbage strewn around their property. However, the council allowed plastic supermarket bags to blow free in the wind.
The approved ordnance also encourages Baltimore residents and businesses to throw at least one colorful plastic bag a day into the wind to spruce up their neighborhoods and thus beautify the city.
The one dissenting environmentalist council member who voted "no" wanted an amendment to establish mandatory gardens, compost heaps and keeping of a few pigs and goats in each homeowner's backyard.
This green measure would have facilitated growing vegetables and the natural recycling of organic and inorganic waste. Additionally, greenhouse gasses (other than foul smells) would be reduced as garbage trucks would no longer be necessary. Apartment and condominium dwellers would have been exempted, unless the dwelling's management and tenants agreed to use any recreational space such as tennis courts for the animals.
Previously, unsuccessful attempts by the Baltimore City Council had been made to ban plastic bags . The city council then tried to establish a DNA database to identify the few slobs who let their bags loose in the city. A Federal Court judge had issued an injunction against taking a DNA sample from each city resident (stored in a data base) to catch the few slobs who tossed their used bags haphazardly onto city streets.
