I was gratified to see in the June 1 issue of the Reporter that I am not the only one noticing how mattresses are turning up all over our neighborhood. While it may be true that suburbanites, contractors, and others are dumping their discarded mattresses and box springs in Dorchester, what I have seen in my Uphams Corner neighborhood is that many residents really have no idea that the pick-up policy has changed.

Whenever I see a resident looking baffled by the mattress that the garbage truck didn’t take, I let them know how to get rid of it, but this really isn’t an effective way to get the word out. If, for example, the City of Boston supplied trash collectors with tags that they could stick on the mattresses they leave behind, letting the owners know what they need to do – and preferably in several languages – I think many people would comply. And yes, there will always be some who don’t.

At the moment, from my house I can see a box spring on a rear porch that has been there so long that the kids who live there have decorated it with markers, and a mattress on the ground in a side yard next door getting waterlogged for well over a month.

This seems to me to be a good policy very poorly implemented. The city can, and should, do a better job at getting the word out.

 Marti A. Glynn
Dorchester