If you’ve driven down the streets of Selma since the holidays it’s likely you’ve noticed the garbage cans running over with trash from Christmas and New Year’s. Likewise many have piled up trash — boxes and such — not designated for garbage pickup, but for the trash truck.

Workers need breaks. Anyone who has toiled at a job for very long needs holidays and vacation. Those breaks keep workers fresh. This is not a diatribe against city garbage or trash workers. They do what they are told.

For years the City of Selma has had the same issue of garbage and trash overflow during this time of year. City officials have tried to take care of the matter by scheduling regular pick-up days for households, usually a day off. But at the end of the year with two holidays so close together, the garbage piles up from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Certainly, solutions are hard to come by. City officials are torn between granting their workers days off and satisfying the needs of their customers — residents and business owners in Selma.

Here’s a suggestion: Put the garbage and trash collectors on rotating schedules. Let them run the regular routes on the routine days. Take volunteers and give them a little extra pay for working on holidays or just rotate them, allowing them extra times to celebrate with their families. Many in the business community take this approach, and it works.

Most of us are tired of looking at Christmas and New Year’s dump on the corners. This doesn’t help Selma’s reputation. And we have a good many visitors from out of town during this time of year.

A little thought and planning would help save the eyesores we have around the city today.