As sure as summer comes to an end, there is a Fall Clean Up Week in the city of Clinton around the corner.

Well, it is here. Residents wishing to get rid of items normally not picked up by the city as part of regular trash collection have been given five days in October to set them curbside and watch their dust-collecting worries disappear. This year, city officials have designated Oct. 12-16 as Fall Clean Up Week.

“As is customary, we will suspend garbage rules to collect items we do not normally collect, with the exception of items not accepted by the landfill,” city public works director Chris Doherty said.

The public works director has encouraged residents to begin collecting any number of items that have amassed since the city’s Spring Clean Up Week. Most likely, they can all be picked up. However, there are a few exceptions.

The city of Clinton cannot collect items not able to be processed by the Sampson County Landfill, including auto parts, car batteries and substances that present hazardous and sticky situations for those collecting and processing them — such as oil-based paints, motor oils, herbicides and pesticides.

While oil-based paints are not recommended, Doherty has said that latex-based paints can be successfully collected if the owner first uses kitty litter as an absorbing agent for any leftover paint in cans or other containers.

The list of items able to be collected, and which have historically been picked up during cleanup weeks past, includes chairs, televisions, couches, washers and dryers, refrigerators, mattresses and box springs, air conditioners, freezers and dishwashers (see box on page A2 for items collected and not collected). There has also been the occasional lawn mower, and even a motorcycle, collected in previous years.

The city has held the biannual cleanup weeks as opportunities for residents to pitch in as part of the overall effort to improve communities and prevent blight — officials have touted the two annual five-day periods with doing just that. Hundreds of tons of trash not normally collected are removed from homes, yards and streets through the biannual effort, while the additional cost for holding the cleanup is offset by the sale of scrap metal collected by city workers.

The city collected 79 tons of trash during its 2007 Fall Clean Up Week and another 83 tons last fall. Among the tonnage collected during last year’s cleanup campaign was 4.6 tons of metal, the sale of which produced nearly $300 to offset the cost of the effort.

Flyers announcing the Fall Clean Up Week have been posted at City Hall and at the Public Works building on John Street. The information has also been disseminated to the public via a reminder on the back of utility bills.

City officials have requested that residents place all non-excluded items at the side of the road by 7 a.m. on their respective collection days throughout the week of Oct. 12-16.

Chris Berendt can be reached at 910-592-8137, ext. 121, or by email at sicrime@myclintonnc.com.