Keep White County, AR Beautiful Count,y City

It's time to spiff up White County.

The county and the City of Searcy are coordinating the annual county-wide clean-up next week. At no charge, residents can bring garbage, old tires and appliances to the county fair grounds for disposal.

Last year's effort saw 71,000 pounds of trash deposited at the fair grounds, 8,670 tires, 3,000 appliances and 200,000 pounds of scrap metal, said Rhonda Covington, coordinator of the clean-up.

That's a lot of junk, but this year Covington expects even more.

"I don't know where it all comes from," she said. "But it keeps coming."

The drop-off has proven popular with people in outlying areas who work in Searcy, said County Judge Bob Parish.

"They'll load up an old refrigerator on their truck and go to work at the factory," he said. "When they get off, they bring it over to the fairgrounds."

To accommodate those workers, the drop-off hours have been extended this year to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday, Oct. 4, through Friday, Oct. 8, and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 9.

The county will accept and process freon in refrigerators and fuel associated with other appliances, but will not accept toxins such as paint and chemicals. Concrete and masonry are likewise prohibited.

As property owners are hauling off their own trash, Covington hopes the general population will get in the spirit of things and help clean up county roadways. Volunteers can call her at 279-6200 to get free trash bags to pick up roadside trash.

If volunteers pick up exceptionally large volumes of trash, she said, the county road crew will pick up the backs as a course of their normal rounds. But such pickups should be arranged ahead of time.

Trash will be deposited in garbage bins provided by the City of Searcy, which will then be transported to the transfer station by city workers. Tires will be brought to the tire dump in Judsonia, and scrap and appliances will be hauled away by private vendors.