BThe city of Clinton’s annual Spring Clean Up Week successfully rid neighborhoods and local homes of excessive trash all last week, with numerous items taken from curbs and yards not normally collected during regular garbage pick-up.

Leading up to the biannual cleanup weeks — there is also one in the fall — residents are urged to set aside items for collection not generally accepted in residential trash. By placing those items at the curb on their normal collection day, residents can dispose of the items for good.

Items able to be collected include furniture, household appliances, tires and tree limbs. There are a maximum of four tires able to be collected per home, and tree limbs can be no longer than 5 feet in length and 6 inches in diameter. The city cannot collect items that are not able to be processed by the Sampson County Landfill, including auto parts, car and truck batteries, oil-based paints, motor oils, gasoline, herbicides and pesticides and demolished homes and sheds.

Over the years, hundreds tons of trash not normally collected as part of residential garbage collected has been able to be discarded through the city’s Spring program.

According to statistics provided by Chris Doherty, director of the city’s Public Works & Utilities Department, many residents again took advantage of the opportunity from April 12-16.

According to Doherty, collected last week were: 77 chairs; 22 couches; 216 pieces of wooden furniture; 69 mattresses and box springs; eight televisions; five heaters; three water heaters; three lawnmowers; two refrigerators; one stove; one dishwasher; and one furnace.

There were 240 other miscellaneous items — including two hot tubs — as well as 14 loads of limbs and six loads of leaves taken away.

More defined tonnages and weight of scrap metal was to be announced later this week, however Doherty also said there were 154 tires collected. At 30 pounds apiece, the tires alone had a weight of 4,620 pounds (2.31 tons).

There was more than 139 tons of trash picked up during last year’s spring campaign, nearly double the amount collected during the 2008 effort, which saw 70 tons of trash collected. There were 89 tons of trash collected in the 2007 Spring Clean Up Week and 119 tons and 185 tons picked up in 2006 and 2005, respectively.

In addition to ridding their own areas of dust-catching eyesores, the city has held the cleanup weeks as opportunities for residents to pitch in as part of the overall effort to improve communities and prevent blight. City 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 effort, while the additional cost for holding the cleanup is offset by the sale of scrap metal collected by city workers.

Last spring, there was 16,660 pounds of scrap metal, or 8.33 tons, collected and sold to Sampson Salvage for $499.80.

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