About 140 tons picked up so far during Cleanup Week

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John M. Steiner / The Sun Dale Bjerke loads up some goods he found Tuesday, during Cleanup Week in Jamestown. Items will continue to be picked up by city crews through Thursday.

Talk about it

Cleanup Week in Jamestown is in full swing, and after two days the pick-up totals are right on track with 2008, said Roger Mayhew, Sanitation Department foreman.

“It’s going really good and I think we’re going to be pretty much on target for what we took in 2008,” Mayhew said.

Numbers from 2009 are skewed because there was no street pickup due to high water events in the city.

So far this year 139.55 tons have been picked up; in 2008 at this time 150.49 tons were picked up, he said.

Part of the decrease is the number of people taking advantage of the 500 pounds a month they are allowed to drop off at the baler, Mayhew said.

“The activity on the scale is up this year,” he said.

As always the materials being picked up are a combination of events but remodeling supplies seem to be out in numbers.

“We’ve got quite a lot of carpeting coming out and I attribute that to high water for the last two years,” Mayhew said.

Just as consistent with the variety of items are people who don’t follow the rules, whether it’s not setting items on the street or placing items that will not be picked up, he said.

“A majority of the citizens are pretty good,” Mayhew said.

Household garbage, appliances, microwaves and televisions have all been found on streets. These items will not be picked up because they can’t go into the inert landfill, he said.

Another problem so far this year is people who place objects on the boulevard not the street. Those can’t be picked up because the equipment would damage the boulevard, Mayhew said.

In addition to normal garbage, other items that won’t be picked up are appliances, electronics, automobiles and parts, paint, solvents, thinners, primers, varnishes, stains, power lawn mowers, propane tanks and gas cans with materials in them and biomedical waste.

Those materials will be left on the street and materials with household garbage on top will not be picked up, Mayhew said.

Even with the setbacks he said Cleanup Week is going well.

“It’s a well-coordinated effort amongst the city employees which makes it go easier,” he said.

Sun reporter Ben Rodgers can be reached at 701-952-8455 or by e-mail at brodgers@jamestownsun.com

Tags: local news, news, cleanup, week