The City of Crookston’s Fall Clean-Up Week will be held this upcoming week from Monday, October 24 to Friday, the 28, and while some things will be the same as it’s been done every year but with some additional limitations due to a lack of garbage trucks.
The city reminds everyone that items should be placed on boulevards no more than 24 hours before your collection day and asks that regular bagged garbage, clothing, and cardboard boxes do not weigh more than 30 pounds per bag and be no larger than 35 gallons. “We’ve limited it to 30 bags per house. The only houses that qualify for Clean-Up Week are single-family home dwellings,” Public Works Director Brandon Carlson explains. “If you’re in an apartment building if your building has a dumpster, or you’re in a multi-family dwelling, you do not qualify for Clean-Up Week.” The clean-up items will only be picked up on their regular garbage pickup day and must be placed on the street boulevard by 7:00 a.m. Only household quantities of debris will be accepted, and no loose garbage will be collected.
The city also collects appliances and tires, but they will have to be separated into separate piles to be collected. Appliances include bypass, refrigerators, dehumidifiers, washers, dryers, air conditioners, heaters, trash compactors, furniture, mattresses, metal items, demolition bypass, etc. Carlson explained that the pile of these items cannot be higher than three feet, longer than fifteen feet, or wider than four feet. Other limitations include a maximum of three furniture items or four mattresses. The city also collects automotive tires and rims and has a limit of four tires per pile. Carlson explained that placing the items in separate piles will help speed up the clean-up process. Carlson also noted that if families miss their collection days during the week, they can drop off their items at the Polk County Transfer Station, but they will have to pay $15 for certain items like bypass and other appliance items. Polk County Public Health also advises residents not to bring any furniture, mattresses, box springs, or bed frames found on the street into their homes to prevent the spread of bed bugs.
While it is a week for cleaning up unwanted items in your homes, the Public Works isn’t accepting everything for the Clean-Up. “Most of the debris that we don’t accept is considered hazardous materials. They also don’t want TVs and computer monitors to end up in the landfill. So, for single residential properties, the Polk County Transfer Station takes a couple of TVs a year from each property for free. Same with batteries and any hazardous material like old paint. We’ll take old paint if they’ve taken the tops off and let it completely dry, but if it’s still in liquid form, we can’t take them, but the Transfer Station will take them for free.” Carlson also recommended that people can sell the batteries they don’t want to automotive stores for about $10. Other items the city will not accept include concrete, batteries, partially full paint cans, chemicals, or large amounts of demolition debris.
Carlson also noted that the yard waste and branch collection has been moved to the following week, October 31 to November 4, due to them only having one garbage truck for the two weeks. “We’re down to one garbage week, so to make it work, we pushed that back a week, so wait to put your branches and leaves out until the following week, the first week in November, and we’ll come around on your regular pickup day like we will for Clean-up Week” Carlson explains. “If your normal pickup day is Wednesday for your regular garbage route, that’s the day we’ll pick up your Clean-up Week debris, and the following week we’ll pick up your leaves and branches.” Carlson noted that the extra truck limits the number of drop-offs they each have to take for leaves, branches, and garbage. Hence, they chose to push the collection back a week but splitting the collection between the two weeks will allow them to need fewer volunteers from the Water Department and Park & Recs employees to help with the collection.
For more information, please visit the City website at: https://www.crookston.mn.us/DocumentCenter/View/760/Fall-Clean-Up-Week-Info-PDF. To hear Public Works Director Brandon Carlson give more information about Fall Clean-Up Week, you can listen to Valley Talk on kroxam.com, under the Community tab, then click on Valley Talk.
