Great Island Clean Up

Join your friends and neighbors in the 2013 Great Island Clean-Up – San Juan Island’s annual “spring cleaning”!

• When? Saturday, April 20, 9 am – noon
• Where? All island roadsides and beaches
• Rain or shine!

The Great Island Clean Up is coming Saturday, April 20

Over 250 islanders participated in last year’s clean-up, collecting more than 2000 pounds of litter. Unfortunately, thoughtless people continue to toss beer and/or soda cans and bottles, cigarette butts, food wrappings, and a variety of other things onto roadsides as they drive, bike or walk by. And drivers with unsecured loads are contributing to the mess by allowing things to blow out of the back of their pick-up trucks (lots of Styrofoam pellets end up as litter this way).

Cutthroats

Multiple organizations – including San Juan County, the Town of Friday Harbor, San Juan Sanitation, Soroptimists, Lions, Rotarians, Chamber of Commerce, and Friends of the San Juans – are collaborating to sponsor the Great Island Clean-Up, a day when all able-bodied islanders are encouraged to help pick up the accumulated trash so that residents and visitors alike are treated to a litter-free island when warmer and sunnier weather beckons us all outdoors.

Earthbox Crew

Every single islander is encouraged to be a part of this effort by picking up any litter they see right in front of their own home or business. And if you would like to do more by joining one of the many groups that have already volunteered to help, contact David Dehlendorf at 378-1082 or dauffa [@] gmail.com.

Girl Scouts

FREE pick-up bags will be available at the Chamber of Commerce office on Spring Street the week prior to the event; in addition, the office also has some grabbers and safety vests that participants are welcome to borrow. Both Browne’s Home Center and ACE Hardware plan to offer pick-up supplies at discount prices.

San Juan Sanitation will pick up collected litter dropped off at any of the following locations: the closed lumber store on Spring St. across from the Best Western Hotel; the intersection of Roche Harbor Rd. and West Valley Rd.; the intersection of Mitchell Bay Rd. and West Side Rd.; the intersection of Beaverton Valley Rd. and Egg Lake Rd.; the intersection of Douglas Rd. and Bailer Hill Rd.; and the parking area at South Beach. Your collected litter must be at one of these locations before 2 pm on April 20. If you are working later in the day or on a different date, you can drop off your collected litter at the transfer station on Sutton Rd. during its regular hours – it’s FREE! Just identify yourself as a litter-picker-upper.

Stillpoint School10

Picking up litter in small groups is much more fun, and also a great deal safer. So gather some friends, co-workers, or family members and make a party out of it! And if you’re not picking up litter the morning of April 20 but are out and about in your car, please be cautious and keep an eye out so that those who are working can do so in relative safety; many of our roadsides lack shoulders and good sight lines.

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