“Mark your calendars!” organizers say. “It’s time for the 2016 Great Islands’ Clean-Up … our annual spring-cleaning!”
San Juan’s cleanup event will be held on Saturday, April 23, 9 a.m. to noon, along all island roadsides and beaches, rain or shine. Both Orcas and Lopez islands will be joining San Juan in the event again this year.
Last year on San Juan, 225 islanders collected over 1600 pounds of litter from approximately 45 miles of roads and several beach areas.
“Our island really did look great!” said organizers. “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. The town of Friday Harbor has issued an official proclamation supporting the clean-up and encouraging everyone to help out.
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, contact David Dehlendorf at 378-1082 or dauffa@gmail.com prior to April 16, or Lori Stokes at 378-4643 or loristokes3@gmail.com after that date. To clean a beach, contact Jana Marks at 378-2319 or jana@sanjuans.org.
Pete Moe is organizing all the clean-up activities on Orcas Island (376- 4089 or pete@exchangeorcas.org). The coordinators on Lopez Island are Nikyta Palmisani for roads (468-2555 or nikytap@lopezsolidwaste.org) and Nick Teague for beaches (468-3754 or gteague@blm.gov).
To help this effort, free pick-up bags will be available at the Chamber of Commerce office on Spring Street during the week prior to the event. In addition, the chamber office also has a limited number of grabbers, gloves 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.; and the parking area at South Beach. Your collected litter must be at one of these locations before 12:30 pm on April 23.
If you want to work 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.
If you are not picking up litter the morning of April 23 but are out and about in your car, please be cautious and keep an eye out for the safely 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!
