Syringe Redemption Aims To Keep Needles Off Boston Streets
A sharps container filled with close to two thousand used syringes this morning at the Southampton Street Shelter in Boston. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Residents and business owners have been complaining about syringes littering the streets of some Boston neighborhoods for years.
Perhaps nowhere more so than the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Boston — often called “Mass/Cass.”
But a new program to clean up the needles appears to be making a difference.
The program, known as the Community Syringe Redemption Program, operates out of a trailer on Atkinson Street, near a city-run center where people can seek help for addiction. The program pays people for syringes they collect on the streets.