ACROSS AMERICA — It’s trash day, and before the truck even comes by to empty the garbage and recycling containers, the block looks as if it was hit by a garbage typhoon.

There could be any number of reasons for this. The wind could have picked up and tipped the trash can on its side. Perhaps a recycling toter was so stuffed with flattened cardboard boxes, empty bottles and cans and plastics and paper that the lid wouldn’t close, making it unstable and wobbly to the point of falling over. Or maybe the neighborhood looked great until the trash truck’s automatic arm missed the mark but rocked the can just enough to spill it.

And plead for mercy it doesn’t rain before someone cleans up the mess and it turns into a river of germy tissues, orange peels, eggshells and last week’s newspapers heading like a flotilla of filth toward the storm sewer drains. Quick, would someone please stop that dirty diaper before it clogs the inflow?

Whose responsibility is it to clean up this mess? Logically, you might think whoever’s trash it is or whoever directly caused the mess should track down their trash and pick it up.

But what if they don’t? As members of a community where everyone wants the same thing — a clean, healthy neighborhood — do you and your neighbors owe it to each other to pick up trash when you see it, regardless of whose trash can it came from? Or is there some middle-ground approach? How would you navigate this?

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About Block Talk

Block Talk is an exclusive Patch series on neighborhood etiquette — and readers provide the answers. If you have a topic you'd like for us to consider, email [email protected] with “Block Talk” as the subject line.