Fairbanks Clean Up Day is just around the corner! Clean Up Day is a community wide volunteer initiative to clean up the trash uncovered by melting snow in the Fairbanks North Star Borough before the summer begins. This year, Green Star has taken the lead on the organizing committee, and you can do your part by registering to clean up a certain area of town, rallying your family, coworkers or close friends to help! We are recommending that participants volunteer in smaller groups and otherwise maintain a distance of six feet from each other while picking up trash using gloves and trash pickers. Yellow bags are available at the Boy Scouts (1400 Gillam Way), Green Star (1101 Well Street), Cowles Heating (1675 Richardson Highway), UAF’s Constitution Hall (1692 Tok Lane), and most Fire Stations.
This year, adapting to the coronavirus pandemic, we are asking people to spread out their cleaning efforts from May 2nd to May 9th, with all bags being picked up May 9th by volunteers. If you organize a clean up crew any day after May 9th you will need to have someone take the yellow bags to the FNSB landfill at 455 Sanduri St. Please secure the Clean Up Day bags in your vehicle! You don’t want your group’s hard work to end up back on our roadways. The Clean Up Day Committee does apply for a tipping fee waiver from the Borough for about a month around Clean Up Day. The bags are weighed and the landfill keeps track of the tonnage. Don’t take your bags to the transfer sites. If it is taken to a local transfer station, it is treated as regular household trash.
Green Star is proud to be leading the Clean Up Day Committee this year. It is made up of a team of super star volunteers from many different sponsoring organizations including; United Way of the Tanana Valley, Department of Transportation: Adopt a Highway, Midnight Sun Council, Boy Scouts of America, Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce, Central Recycling Facility Fairbanks North Star Borough Landfill, Explore Fairbanks and The Radio Station.
Another group of heros for this event are the “Heavy Hauler” volunteers, who pick up the yellow bags on Clean Up Day and transport them to the landfill. The crew and the pickup route are organized by Justin at Cowles Heating. Many companies volunteer their time and their trucks to pick up yellow bags. This is a list from 2017: A&A Roofing Company Inc., Alaska Waste, CCI Alliance, Cowles Heating Services, City of Fairbanks Public Works Department, Florcraft Carpet One, Frontier Supply Company, Horst Expediting & Remote Operations and MacCheyne’s Carpet’s Plus, Inc.
Clean Up Day is the perfect way to get outside, get some exercise and give back to your community. Register today.