TRR photo by Chris Conroy Joseph Kaiser, 5, helped to empty one of the two truckloads of rubbish brought to the clean up drop off. (Click for larger image)

Cleaning up the town

By CHRIS CONROY

ELDRED, NY — Sure there were some flies buzzing around, but that’s to be expected when there are three roll-off containers packed with the town’s rubbish.

May 3 found three towns and two villages in Sullivan County cleaning up, among them the town of Highland. The annual chance for spring cleaning brings out truckloads of household items that otherwise tend to just accumulate.

“We usually see a lot of TV sets,” said Highland supervisor Alan Schadt. “This year we didn’t, but there were some computers.”

Schadt said he was a little concerned when he showed up early in the morning at the Sullivan County transfer station where town residents would be bringing their trash. First thing in the morning, he didn’t see the two large roll-off containers he expected to find. Schadt said he was afraid it was going to be a replay of last year, when the expected containers didn’t show up and all the collected trash had to be piled on the ground.

It turned out the containers had just been dropped off on the other side of the transfer station due to a locked gate. Schadt and loader operator Tom Stewart got the containers into place shortly before the first residents arrived. A third container was also delivered.

By the end of the day, all three of those containers were packed to capacity.

With landfill tipping fees covered by the county, the official clean up days are a chance for town residents to get rid of items that they might otherwise not. Large amounts of broken furniture, plastic toys, wood, sheet rock and plain old garbage were brought in by about 100 different residents.

“The strangest thing that came in was a body bag filled with garbage,” Schadt said. “We checked inside… just to be sure.”