Dear Editor,

The Portland Health Department used to send around a van, once in a while, to collect items such as old stoves, pipes, paint cans and other mosquito-breeding refuse that collect in back yards.

Recently, what has been collecting in backyards is scrap metal, an equally efficient mosquito breeder. Meanwhile, many persons are crying out for financial help and job opportunities.

May I suggest that the Government seek to control the scrap metal trade by confining the collection of this waste product to small or medium-sized pieces only in order to reduce the urge to steal large pieces of metal infrastructure.

The small loads of scrap metal could be collected by sending vans or trucks around to individual communities (on an announced day) and the individual scrap metal could be weighed and paid for on site and removed from the premises by licensed solid waste management authority officers.

The same officers could spend a few hours in each rural or urban community, collecting, weighing and paying, and thus put precious pennies into the hands of householders who need it most. And we may just solve the mosquito problem at the same time.

Marguerite Gauron

hmgauron@gmail.com