BCGR - Spring Clean & Tire Amnesty

Spring is here and for many of us its time for sprucing up around our homes and properties. The city of Abilene would like to help you out the next few days. The spring clean and tire amnesty days are underway for Abilene residents at the city's environmental recycling center. Now in it's 10th year, the spring clean event is part of the 90-day Great Abilene Clean-Up event campaign between the city's Solid Waste Services and Keep Abilene Beautiful.

Leonard Neith, Recycling Center Manager told KRBC News "we've asked everybody to clean out their backgrounds, clean out behind the house, garage, alleyways, whatever you know behind their house and all that stuff helps Abilene to be clean and be beautiful.. For the next few days, recycling center staff will collect your trash and separate the recyclable and non-recyclable items. The center will take anything from clothing to old furniture to old appliances. There are some items that do have some restrictions, such as the tires brought to the center. Neith said "all the people from the city of Abilene can bring eight tires of up to a light truck tire [size], pickup truck tire and no rims at all."

He says during the event last April, over 1500-vehicles dropped over 220-tons of trash and about 18-hundred tires. He says the amount of trash is down from the over 400-tons that was collect at the first event. He says the lower amount now compared to back doesn't mean less people are taking part. Neith: "It just goes top show what's getting cleaned up through the city every time we do it. We like high numbers but we like the low numbers cause it shows we're cleaning up our city," explained Neith

 This year’s event is scheduled for this Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 16 – 18. Hours of operation will be 9:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. daily. Special traffic conditions will be set up on Saturday, April 18th when Oak Street will become a one way street, entering from South 25th. The one-way traffic is meant to increase safety during the busiest day of Spring Clean. During this special event, the ERC will accept a variety of items including furniture, mattresses, batteries, common recyclables, bulky brush and tires. Citizens can even drop off household hazardous waste ranging from paint and automotive items such as oil and oil filters and computers.

Materials that won’t be accepted are items from major remodeling projects, roofing materials, concrete, stones and dirt. Fencing will be taken but participants will have to off load their own materials. Abilene residents may bring in up to eight (8) passenger tires without rims, free of charge with proof of residency (current water bill). Passenger tires with rims will have an additional $3.00 service fee per tire. Truck tires without rims are $6.00, with rims $10.00. Only Ag tires without rims will be accepted and are priced by the size of the tires. No commercial, business nor large truck tires will be accepted.

For more information about Spring Clean for Abilene & Tire Amnesty Days, call (325) 672-2209.