Litter-Free by the Sea

It’s the Great Islands Clean Up. Lori Stokes has the lowdown for this year’s event…

Hey, everyone! It’s time for the 2015 Great Islands Clean-Up… our annual spring-cleaning! And this year, both Orcas and Lopez will be joining San Juan in the event, hence the change in our name to “Islands”!

The specific information about San Juan Island’s effort is as follows:

• When: Saturday, April 18th. 9 am – noon
• Where: All island roadsides and beaches
• Rain or shine!

Last year on San Juan, 275 islanders collected over 3800 pounds of litter from approximately 45 miles of roads and several beach areas. And, our island really did look GREAT!

But sadly, our refuse continues to end up as litter. Thoughtless tossing of bottles, cans, food wrappers, or cigarette butts; accidental “blowing away” of debris from unsecured loads on boats and trucks; or deliberate dumping of tires, etc., all contribute to the need to make litter pick-up an ongoing effort.

Multiple organizations – including San Juan County, the town of Friday Harbor, San Juan Sanitation, island service clubs, the Chamber of Commerce and Friends of the San Juans – are collaborating to sponsor this year’s Great Islands 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.

Please connect with your business, school, non-profit, service or neighborhood groups, family and friends and volunteer to help. You can join a group that has already been formed, or you can organize a group of your own!

To clean a road on San Juan, contact David Dehlendorf at 378-1082 or
dauffa [@] gmail [.] com

To clean a beach on San Juan, contact Jana Marks at 378-2319 or
jana [@] sanjuans [.] org

The contact on Orcas is Kira Bradshaw at
kirabradshaw72 [@] gmail [.] com

The contact on Lopez is Nikyta Palmisani at
nikytap [@] lopezsolidwaste [.] org

To help this effort: FREE pick-up bags will be available at the Chamber of Commerce office on Spring Street the week prior to the event. In addition, their office also has a limited number of grabbers and safety vests that participants are welcome to borrow.

San Juan Sanitation will be picking up collected litter at the following locations:

• Bonnie’s Craft Supplies on Spring St. across from the Friday Harbor Suites
• 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.
• The parking area at South Beach

Your collected litter must be at one of these locations before 1:30 pm on April 18.

If you want to work on a different date, you can drop off your collected litter at the transfer station on Sutton Road during its regular hours – it’s FREE! Just identify yourself as a litter-picker-upper.

If you are not picking up litter the morning of April 18 but are out and about in your car, please be cautious and keep an eye out for the safety of the clean-up crews; many of our roadsides lack shoulders and good sight lines.

Everyone is encouraged to pitch-in and clean around their neighborhoods and businesses, and help us be Litter-Free by the Sea!

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