October 4, 2000
Taking out the trash
Blair Township residents take part in fall clean-up day
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
It was hours of organized chaos, a chance to make a big mess in order to clean up many little messes.
Once again, the biannual clean-up day in Blair Township drew hundreds of township residents bringing truckload after truckload of unwanted junk. Beginning at 8 a.m., residents patiently lined up to wait their turn at the Blair Township Hall with their jammed pickup trucks, groaning trailers or overflowing rental vans, eager to lighten their household load.
They brought everything from couches, scrap wood and shingles to mattresses, carpeting and toys. Appliances, tires, bikes and batteries came in by the dozens and were separated from the trash; most will be recycled in some way.
While they do pay for the service with their taxes, totaling about $20,000 a year to haul away all the junk, many township residents were happy at the chance to unload piles of unwanted or unused items.
"I cleaned out the back shed," said Julie Kincannon, who came with her neighbor, Wayne Purkiss, who conveniently owned a pick-up truck. "You hang onto stuff for so long it becomes like part of the family but you have to realize that it might not be useful anymore."
Marc Schroeder pulled in with a 15-foot rented van packed to overflowing with junk from his garage and basement. He figured the $60 investment for the day paid off, considering the multiple trips he would have made otherwise in his own small pick-up truck. He even calculated that the truck rental fee was about the same as the cost to take everything to the dump, not counting his time and cost for many trips.
"It is a pretty nice thing for the township to do this for us out here," Schroeder said. "Before they did this, people used to dump all this stuff in Hoosier Valley."
Thanks in part to the clean-up days, held every spring and fall since the early 1990s, Hoosier Valley dumping is now a dim memory in township history. Recent community efforts spearheaded by Grand Traverse County Sheriff Scott Schwander, the township's liaison officer, have worked to clean up the valley.
"We have this clean-up day because the reason junk ends up in Hoosier Valley is that nowadays there's nowhere to put the stuff," said Joe Lowe, Blair Township supervisor.
The clean-up day featured a fleet of garbage trucks from Waste Management, which chewed up load after load of junk before snorting away to the dump to unload and come back for more. A chipper stood ready to grind up brush and a family from Wexford County gathered old bikes to rebuild and give to needy families.
The backbone of the clean-up days is the volunteers who come and unload the trash, not shrinking at the dirty, tiring work. They dove right into the dirtiest, heaviest of jobs right alongside the professionals from Waste Management.
"Township employees and citizens volunteer to come down here and get filthy dirty doing this," Lowe said. "They don't ask anybody what they're going to get for this, they just do it."
Chuck and Lynn Fricke have helped out at every clean-up day since they started. They have turned the event into part of their annual tradition to begin and end summer. They put in their dock after a morning helping at the spring clean-up day and take it out after their fall clean-up day shift.
"It's fun, you meet your neighbors and have a good opportunity to be involved in the community," said Chuck Fricke.
Fricke uses his experience as a clean-up day veteran to do what he considers the best job: unloading refrigerators and heavy appliances.
"I don't mind heavy lifting, I don't like gooey, drippy stuff," Fricke said. "Tires, they are wet, not fun at all."